Within the context of the ongoing global health crisis, we must all play our part in the search for innovative, solidarity-based solutions that will enable us to lay the foundations for a solid and sustainable recovery. To help meet this critical challenge, at the national level, Ineco is firmly committed to aiding the efforts of the Ministry of  Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda by providing technical support to help implement the Spanish Government’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.

The main aims of this Plan are to modernise the economy, restore economic growth and create jobs, and as such, it will play a key role in consolidating and boosting the activities of the engineering and consultancy sector, which will have to offer a sound and technologically innovative response to the challenges that are looming in the short and medium term.

These are challenges that our company is tackling head-on, following a positive end to the 2020 financial year and prospects for 2021 that allow us to remain fairly optimistic, based on most solid guarantee of all: the enormous talent of our professionals. The award that one of our team recently received from the Madrid Association of Civil Engineers, along with the development of the innovative EOS project to help make flight procedures safer, are clear examples of Ineco’s entrepreneurial and forward-looking response capacity.

At Ineco we are firmly committed to aiding the efforts of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda by providing technical support to help implement the Spanish Government’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan

At the international level, the contracts we have recently signed – such as the one for the Tren Maya, in Mexico, not only boost Ineco’s economic outlook for the coming years, but also reinforce the leading role played by Spanish engineering around the world.

Further examples of our strength and competitiveness include the commission to produce the Master Plan and design for what will become the second-largest airport in Greece, at Kasteli on the island of Crete; and the extension of the renovation works on the rail link between Samsun and Kalin, in Turkey.

This work is the result of the knowledge we have acquired through the projects we have implemented in Spain over recent decades. Among them, the addition of gauge changeovers to the high-speed rail network: a highly successful experience, particularly useful in terms of helping us export our know-how to other countries. At the international level, examples include highly specialised projects such as the development of new rail regulations for the Empresa de Ferrocarriles del Estado de Chile (EFE).

We have also made progress in fulfilling our commitment to the 2030 Agenda and the 17 SDGs: a commitment that continues to encourage us to promote actions and initiatives designed to improve quality of life for society as a whole. This has led us to continue supporting solidarity-based projects such as IngenioSOS which has helped to improve essential services in Kenya, Ethiopia, Guatemala, South Sudan, India and Haiti over the course of its two editions.

The company will prepare the detailed design of the new airport to be built in Kasteli, on the Greek island of Crete, with a capacity for 15 million passengers. It will be located some 35 kilometres from the existing Nikos Kazantzakis airport, which was opened in 1937 in Heraklion, the island’s capital and currently serves as the country’s second international airport.

The construction and operation of the new airport have been awarded to the international consortium Ariadne Group, comprising the Indian company GMR Airports and the Greek holding company GEK TERNA. By 2015, Ineco had already completed the tender project for TERNA, which included the Master Plan and the complete conceptual design, both on the ground and in the air: a airfield with a 3,200 metre runway, parking apron for 41 aircraft (commercial, general aviation and helicopters), ground access, a passenger terminal building with approximately 75,000 m² of floorspace, the control tower and auxiliary buildings: SEI, police, power plant, water supply, water treatment plant, maintenance building, buildings for handling operators and fuel plant.

The new airport is expected to be operational by 2025.