A recommendation has been made in a letter sent to ANA, analyzing the Report of Consultations on the new Lisbon airport, which gathered input from over 100 entities, including airlines, ground handling companies, municipal councils, the National Civil Aviation Authority (ANAC), and NAV Portugal.
“We cannot overlook that the report highlights a misalignment between stakeholders’ expectations and the traffic projections presented by the national airport concessionaire, particularly between 2035 and 2045,” state Finance and Infrastructure Ministers Joaquim Miranda Sarmento and Miguel Pinto Luz in the letter to ANA Aeroportos.
The ministers emphasize the importance of basing the Luís de Camões airport project at Campo de Tiro de Alcochete and the master plan for its opening phase on realistic traffic forecasts. Only then can the infrastructure be appropriately sized to meet demand and accommodate potential positive deviations.
“Therefore, the granting authority [the State] believes the traffic forecast and its assumptions should be revisited as soon as possible,” they reaffirm.
In the executive summary of the report, published today on the Instituto da Mobilidade e dos Transportes (IMT) website, ANA notes that stakeholders generally do not reject the growth premise presented. However, no alternative forecast supported by a study was proposed.
In the initial report, released earlier this year, the airport administrator estimated growth to approximately 52 million passengers by 2060 at the new airport, compared to the current 35 million passengers at Humberto Delgado, Lisbon.
After reviewing the report, the government found most of the received contributions pertinent, expressing reservations only about some proposals to amend the “minimum specifications.”
Of the nine proposals submitted by ANA, seven achieved broad consensus among stakeholders, including the runway lengths, the distance between them, and the number of contact parking positions.
Two proposals will undergo further technical evaluation. One concerns reducing fuel autonomy at the airport facilities from five to three days. The other proposes eliminating the construction of two catering buildings, one of which would be the direct responsibility of airport management.
The executive summary also reveals stakeholder concerns over uncertainties in the planning and schedule of accessibilities to the new airport, including the Third Crossing of the Tagus, conventional and high-speed rail connections, and the need for redundancy in road access to the passenger terminal.
Among other recommendations, participants suggested that ANA explore alternatives to increasing fees at Humberto Delgado Airport from 2026, such as profit reinvestment, capital injections by shareholders, traditional debt financing, or European Union grants. Some entities also proposed using part of the sale value of the current airport’s land to avoid increasing user fees.
The concessionaire proposes financing the project without public subsidies, combining up to 7.3 billion euros in debt with operational revenues, including a gradual increase in fees. ANA argues that this strategy allows for risk reduction, study acceleration, and the new airport’s timetable advancement.
The new airport specifications are defined in Annex 16 of the concession contract signed in 2012, originally lasting 50 years, which, according to the proposal for the new airport, could be extended by another 30 years. The government will take all necessary legal measures to update this annex.
The letter to ANA further clarifies that these changes do not constitute an opportunity for the concessionaire to claim the restoration of economic-financial balance, neither legally nor under the contract.
The timeline estimates the opening of the new airport at Campo de Tiro de Alcochete around mid-2037, with the possibility of advancing to late 2036 through optimizations negotiated with the government.
The consultation report was delivered in July and represents the first of four interim reports to be part of the complete application for the new airport, whose final submission deadline is set for January 2028.
The next milestone in the process will be the delivery of the Environmental Report, scheduled for January 2026. However, the government emphasizes that ANA can continue with subsequent reports – environmental and technical – using the optimized versions already validated by the State.
