The Executive Chairman of ANA – Aeroportos de Portugal said this Friday that he believes the work at Lisbon Airport, which will increase efficiency with an investment of between 200 million and 300 million euros, can be continued at the end of 2023.
Thierry Ligonier disseminated this information at the 47th National Congress of the Portuguese Association of Travel and Travel Agencies (APAVT), which takes place in Ponta Delgada, Sao Miguel, in the Azores.
“The project for this first phase of the Lisbon airport expansion – which is not a capacity expansion because it requires environmental licensing – […] puts on the table the possibility of increasing the capacity of the Lisbon airport,” the official said.
“This is a project worth between 200 and 300 million euros, which includes the creation of a new apron with the possibility of planes coming into contact with the infrastructure. […]also allows Terminal 1 to be extended to the south with more than 10 boarding gates so that we can board and disembark via the telescopic bridges,” he said.
“This is an important jump at Lisbon Airport,” stressed the CEO.
On the sidelines of the convention, the CEO also explained to Lusa that, in essence, these works will bring “a little more operational performance and, ultimately, more airport capacity for the sake of efficiency, and not the declared capacity.”
About the works, he says that they have already been carried out at the level of the executive project, now after the administrative process, namely “environmental licensing – not necessarily in this case an environmental impact declaration -”, but there will be, according to him, consultations with users, approval from the regulator, ANAC, and the grantor’s assessment.
Having said that, “if things went the way we imagine – and it is necessary to have the voluntary contribution of all the actors involved in this process – but if everyone did their job quickly, we could potentially start work at the end of 2023”, he said.
The general director of the company that manages national airports also said that the terms of reference for the project are ready, there is no tender for the work.
Also Luzet Thierry Ligonier explained how such an increase in efficiency can occur.
“Having contact positions reduces the use of buses and the parking of planes in remote locations. This will improve the quality of service, as well as improve the environmental performance of the airport as a whole,” he said.
However, when asked if the work would lead to more aircraft flights per hour, Thierry Ligonier said they would “bring regularity.”
“The Lisbon airport in its current state sometimes runs into difficulties because there are violations, there are delays, there are cancellations,” he cited an example, adding that “for an airport to work well, you need to create capacity when there is none, to do it in terms of the infrastructure itself – it should be through operational performance,” he added.
On September 29, Infrastructure and Housing Minister Pedro Nuno Santos said Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado Airport needed work “now” to improve its turnover, given that the new airport “will take time.”
At the end of the Council of Ministers meeting, a government official acknowledged that “the new airport will take time”, but that “already today there is an urgent need” and that “work in Portela [Humberto Delgado]By not allowing an increase in the capacity of the airport, it will at least increase the smoothness of the operation of the airport,” he said.
The initiative “implies an investment and implies a change in the basis of the concession” with ANA, owned by the Vinci group, he said, pointing out that it is within this framework that one can “achieve value” for this investment by reaching an “understanding” with the dealer.
According to the minister, in these negotiations with ANA, so far only work at the Humberto Delgado airport is being discussed, since the location of the new infrastructure has not yet been determined.
At the opening of the congress, the president of APAVT stated that since the decision on the new airport structure would not be implemented in the coming years, work should continue at Lisbon airport to improve efficiency.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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