PCP says need for Beja airport ‘even more clear’

The Alentejo PCP said this Friday that the choice of Alcochete as the site for a new airport in the Lisbon region “makes even more clear the need” to include Beja Airport in the national airport network.

In a statement published this Friday, the regional directorate of PCP Alentejo (DRA) noted that the decision announced by the AD government, “especially given the time frame presented,” requires the use of an already built and operating airport near the city. from Beja.

The choice of director Luis Montenegro “makes even more clear the need for Beja Airport to truly be included in the national airport network, namely to ensure an immediate response to passenger traffic needs using its full potential,” the document says.

For the communist structure, “only the subordination of the already scandalous profits of the Vinci concessionaire can justify millions and millions of public expenditures on the expansion of an airport that will be closed,” that is, the Humberto Delgado Airport.

Instead, the construction phase of the new Lisbon airport should use “the already existing airport infrastructure, as in the case of Beja Airport,” he stressed.

Alentejo Airport “is well positioned to meet the expected increase in air traffic over the next 10 years without the need to expand Humberto Delgado Airport,” the DRA said.

And Beja Airport could also “prove itself as an important complementary airport infrastructure” to the new airport if “some investments are made in accessibility”, he added.

In a statement, the PKP called for progress “once and for all” in “improving, qualifying and increasing the capacity of Beja Airport,” which would “save the state several million euros” and guarantee investment for a future that “will not be destroyed by the closure of Humberto Delgado Airport.”

Other communist demands include “serious investment in the region’s highway, correcting the scandalous delays”, such as the full completion of IP8 between Sines and Vila Verde de Ficalho and the provision of IP2 completion works along the entire route to Alentejo, as well as adaptation of airport access .

“Modernization of railways in the region” and “exploiting the potential of rail transport for fast and reliable” access to the airport is another of the goals stated by the PKP, as well as the electrification of the Alentejo line between Casa Branca and Beja, and between Beja and Funcheira, including, among other things, the construction of a bypass road to the airport.

The PKP also expressed the desire that “the measures now announced” by the government “are actually implemented and that they do not turn out to be just another announcement without practical consequences.”