Pedro Nuno Santo, Portuguese Minister of Infrastructure, was slapped on the knuckles by Prime Minister Antonio Costa after he announced the government’s intention to build a new complementary airport in Lisbon, at Montijo, on a former military base opposite the capital.
“The country has been talking about airports for years. It’s been too long. The decision is made. We will make progress,” said the minister on Wednesday evening.
In his dynamic, he announced that the socialist executive wanted to start planning the construction of a future single airport in Alcochete, also on the south bank of the Tagus, which could replace the current Portela airport and that of Montijo in around the whole region in a dozen years to use when traffic levels justify it.
He was disowned by Prime Minister Antonio Costa the next day. “There was a serious error that was quickly fixed.” In summary, the construction of this second airport is out of the question.
The announcement took opposition parties by surprise, especially as the prime minister said last week that the new centre-right opposition leader would be consulted before a decision would be made. Environmental groups also sharply criticized this decision, which was made without a “real strategic environmental assessment”.
Antonio Costa’s words make you smile when you remember what he said in 2019 when he announced the decision to expand the capacity of the current Humberto Delgado Airport on the banks of the Tagus River and to build a second airport by the end of 2022 across the river, at a military base in Montijo that already has an airstrip. He said it was time to close 50 years of debate on the advisability of creating a new airport in the Portuguese capital region, during which no fewer than 17 projects had been discussed.
“For 50 years, the costs of not making a decision have been very high. This has resulted in the airport no longer being able to support the tourist economy,” explained Antonio Costa, already Prime Minister, upon signing an agreement with Vinci that set out the main principles for increasing capacity in the Lisbon region.
The infrastructure minister at the time, Pedro Marques, believed at the time that this airport project would “solve one of the biggest development problems in Portugal”.
Ambitious project
The goal was in fact to decongest the airport and benefit from the growth in air traffic and tourism, a strategic sector for Portugal in general and Lisbon in particular. Before Covid-14, it generated sales of billions of euros per year for the capital region alone. Lisbon, which handled 30 million passengers before the pandemic, should eventually be able to accommodate 65 million with its two platforms.
The project was ambitious. In agreement with the air traffic control services, it should make it possible to double the number of flight movements (takeoffs, landings) within 10 years to 72 per hour compared to 38 today. This with two runways, one per airport. With 24 movements per hour, the new Montijo Airport should have a third of the capacity of the new airport system and be specialized in the so-called “point-to-point” traffic, if the current airport were to keep its vocation as a hub with the maintenance of the connection system TAP Portugal.
Vinci was responsible for the financing and execution of this project. As part of this agreement, ANA had in fact committed to investing 1.115 billion euros by 2028 (500 million for the new airport and 650 million for the current one), to which an envelope of 150 million euros was added to compensate the army and to do so to contribute the work of access to the airport.
The problem of congestion at Lisbon airport and the urgent need to relieve it due to the tourism boom in the Portuguese capital has been mentioned for several years.
It’s a blow for Vinci. The French group, which has held the concession of the Portuguese airport manager ANA since 2013, committed in 2019 to invest more than one billion euros in the expansion of the current Lisbon airport and the construction of the Montijo airport.