150 million endowment to make Naples airport safer

A 150 million plan to strengthen the Port of Naples and make navigation safer even during manoeuvres. The first step in this plan of interventions for the port at the centre of the Mediterranean and along the ideal route between Suez and Gibraltar, comes with the go-ahead for the works to strengthen the Duca D'Aosta breakwater. The works, which for this phase envisage an expenditure of EUR 92.7 million, involve 1.1 kilometres of dam for a total intervention of approximately EUR 121 million, as part of a broader intervention called 'Prolongation and strengthening of the Duca D'Aosta breakwater' financed for a total of EUR 150 million with complementary funds from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

The bureaucratic authorisation process has been completed and the approval for "one of the most complex and costly maritime works ever carried out in the Campania commercial port" has arrived from the Port System Authority (AdSP) of the Central Tyrrhenian Sea. "After a laborious administrative process," says the president of the AdSP, Andrea Annnunziata, "we are finally starting very important work, which is fundamental for protecting the safety of navigation and the competitiveness of traffic. All within the timeframe that Italy and the EU are asking us for".

The work will restore a part of the seawall that guarantees the safe access of incoming and outgoing ships, which was partially damaged after a series of sea storms in recent years. This first phase of the work will reconstruct the breakwater wall, and then extend the infrastructure protecting the port for its entire length of 2.6 kilometres, adding approximately another 200 metres of broadside.

"The works that have just started," explains Giuseppe Grimaldi, secretary general of the AdSP, "will be carried out over a length of 800 metres, on the sea-side front, where a reef will be built covered with a mantle of tetrapods, specific for maritime dams. Widespread rehabilitation, repair, and local consolidation of existing structures are also planned for the entire 2.6 kilometres of the Duca d'Aosta dam and the Thaon de Revel antemurale. These are important interventions since the entire harbour defence system requires continuous maintenance works because, as experts and insiders point out, the infrastructure "absorbs wave motion, guaranteeing the manoeuvring of ships in complete safety".

For the Duca d'Aosta Dam of the Port of Naples, the most important interventions have been carried out in recent decades after a series of violent sea storms, such as the one in January 1987, December 1999, and December 2004, which caused some caissons to slip, underwater cracking, and disruption of the breakwater wall. The last violent sea storm dates back to December 2020 "and caused a series of partial collapses and instabilities that required restoration, upgrading and extension work". In the cabotage sector, the Port of Naples is a leader, representing 50% of Italian traffic. It is also a key hub for freight and passenger transport to the major islands (Sicily and Sardinia).