In February this year, the government was reported to have decided that Montijo airbase should be converted to civilian use to ease the congestion at Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado’s airport.
The government was said to have chosen the Montijo air base solution, rather than developing airports at Sintra or Alverca, or building a completely new airport at Alcohete, on logistical, cost and speed grounds.
Aeroportos de Portugal (ANA), the French owned manager of Portugal’s airports, by August this year, should have presented a formal proposal for the expansion of Lisbon's airport capacity but the Government and ANA are still ‘exchanging technical information,’ with any final decision by the executive due to be taken in 2018, or whenever...
ANA missed the August deadline for presenting its proposal for the expansion of Lisbon's airport capacity, despite this being one of the key parts of the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the State and ANA in February.
The excuse of ‘exchanging technical information’ for Montijo airport means the decision deadline of "the second half of 2018," may have to be extended.
The Ministry of Planning and Infrastructures said that "the Government and the concessionaire are in a phase of exchange of technical information, as determined in the memorandum," and that "the final decision on the expansion of Lisbon's airport capacity should be taken in 2018."
Although the deadline has been missed, the Government maintains the decision still will be made in the second half of 2018. This is despite Humberto Delgado reaching its full capacity this summer.
With tourism increasing and a maximum capacity of 23 million passengers per year at Lisbon’s airport already causing problems, plans by TAP, Ryanair and easyJet to increase the number of routes in and out of Lisbon will have to be postponed.
The timetable for the final decision over Montijo includes a period to mull over a, no doubt exhaustive, environmental impact assessment which will be based on work carried out in June or July 2018.
The only report expected in 2017 is of a study on the dangers posed by birds during the take-off and landing of commercial flights.
If Montijo gets to go-ahead, its development aims to double the current capacity of Lisbon to 72 aeroplane movements per hour and 50 million passengers per year.
The twin use of Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado Airport with Montijo air base already has been evaluated by Navegação Aérea de Portugal, which considers that the ‘Lisbon + 1’ solution is an adequate one, based on a 2016 report from Eurocontrol, the international body responsible for the Single European Sky.
With the number of worthy bodies involved and reports required, the government may find ample excuses for continued dithering.
