11 Oct This year’s LleidaAirChallenge Fair closes with a 30% increase in visitors, reaching 5,500
This year’s LleidaAirChallenge Fair, which was held at Lleida-Alguaire airport this weekend, closed its doors today with 5,500 visitors, who were able to visit the nearly hundred exhibitors installed lats and attend and take part in the wide range of activities organized around the world of aeronautics. The number of visitors this year exceeds by 30% that of the previous edition. The one in 2023 would be the ninth edition of the fair if you count that in October 2013 edition 0 was held.
The president of Aeroports de Catalunya, Daniel Albalate, was “very satisfied and grateful with the very good reception the fair has had this year and explained that the increase in visitors “exceeds our expectations” . According to Albalate, all of this “confirms the success of the change of dates and location in the industrial area, which has been very pleasing to the public and the exhibitors and has helped circulation within the site”. It should be remembered that this year the fair has been located for the first time on the industrial platform of the airport and, in addition, that it has stopped being held at the beginning of June, as it had been done in previous editions, to avoid the extreme heat of those dates, and has been moved to October 7 and 8.
Daniel Albalate has highlighted that the fair has been a success for professionals and fans of the sector. “They tell us that they have also exceeded their expectations and this is confirmed by the number of aircraft and fly-in visits we have had”, he pointed out. It is worth saying that during the two days of the fair the airport welcomed more than 120 aircraft between visitors and exhibitors”. Albalate also wanted to highlight the family and festive atmosphere experienced at the airport all weekend. “This is what we intend – he said – to open our facilities and bring aeronautics closer to the public”.
The 96 exhibitors at the fair have been distributed in three spaces: one, dedicated to New Space activity and new aeronautical and space technologies; a second, in the field of training; the third, to companies in the aeronautical sector. For the first time, the fair has included the on-site sale of second-hand aircraft, specifically three small planes and a helicopter.
Visitors were able to enjoy drone exhibitions, with demonstrations of their possible applications, and workshops for children. The activities around drones have been one of the attractions of the fair, in line with the relevance that this technology is achieving in aeronautics. The Catalan Air Federation has organized exhibitions of the different types of sports aviation, with autogyros, paramotors and model airplanes, and with historic aircraft. One of the novelties for the public is that this year they had the opportunity to experience piloting an aircraft using two flight simulators, one for commercial flights and another for competition. A helicopter from the Mossos d’Esquadra body and another from the Rural Agents have also been exhibited.
The fair’s program included eleven days, most of which revolved around the airport’s different strategic orientations and its job opportunities, which were well received, with an average attendance of more than of 30 people. The first and only Spanish professional wingwalker (air dancer), Ainhoa Sánchez, has explained what her acrobatic modality consists of at the “Dancing on a biplane” conference. Joan Anton Català, curator of the Joan Oró Year Commemoration, also spoke, with the informative conference “Joan Oró: the origin of life and the Universe”.
