The general coordinator of the Independent Technical Commission for the new airport in the Lisbon region, Maria do Rosário Partidário, admits that the Rio Frio+Poceirão location “has very little probability” because the area is “insufficient”.
On April 27, the technical commission that is studying the expansion of Lisbon’s airport capacity announced nine possible options for the new airport, which include the five defined by the Government plus Portela+Alcochete, Portela+Pegões, Rio Frio+Poceirão and Pegões.
In an interview to Antena1 and Jornal de Negócios, Maria do Rosário Partidário admitted that the Rio Frio+Poceirão location is unlikely to be adopted, although she did not rule it out completely, and said that the Technical Commission will present solutions to relieve Lisbon airport in the short term, using Beja and Montijo, and that a study will be presented in “one month, two months”.
Rio Frio+Poceirão “is very exploratory, it has very little chance” of what “we’ve been looking at in the meantime” after the options were announced.
“We’ve done a little more analysis, it’s very unlikely, but we don’t want to rule it out completely without being sure. Often these options are very important and useful from one perspective, for example accessibility, [which] is the case of Ota, but not from a number of other perspectives,” the general coordinator continued.
Therefore, “we have to combine a different range of aspects,” he pointed out.
Now, “the Poceirão is insufficient, the area is insufficient,” she pointed out.
“We are aiming for tracks four kilometers long, more than three kilometers, so we are between 3.5 kilometers and four kilometers,” and “Poceirão doesn’t have the capacity to have three tracks, for example,” he argued.
Maria do Rosário Partidário also said that the Technical Commission is “looking at the capacity” of the airport network in the Lisbon region “to somehow accommodate some types of flights during more critical periods.
Asked if Beja’s airport could be a solution, she admitted yes, giving the example that it will already be used during the World Youth Day in the summer.
“Beja, by the way, will be used now for Youth Day. If it is going to be used for Youth Day in the same logic it can be used for other critical peaks,” he defended.
“But] it will always be for smaller aircraft. We are trying to understand, even with the support of ANA and NAV, what other possibilities there may be. There aren’t many, there isn’t much room for maneuver, but eventually we will see what is the possibility in the short term to try to open up a little space to be able to solve the problem, because in fact we are in a very, very critical situation,” he stressed.
Maria do Rosário Partidário pointed out that there are “other airports, such as Montijo”.
“We are working with them to try to explore the pure and simple goal of trying to solve the problem in the short term,” which “may be two years.”
However, “it’s not taking two years to implement, it’s in the next two years adopting solutions that allow Portela to be relieved.”
The Independent Technical Commission is already beginning to look into the issue and expects to present its findings within “a month, two months.”
Although there are nine options for the location of the new airport, the official pointed out that this does not mean “that all nine are studied with the same level of detail”, but “the five that are in the Council of Ministers Resolution certainly are”.
The others, which correspond “basically to two locations, are options that emerged from the participatory process, that we didn’t have time to perform the analysis we did regarding the others that were excluded.
“Within the limits of what we were able to do, we didn’t gather enough evidence for us to be able to exclude them,” he added, so further analysis is needed, which is why they stayed on the map.
The general coordinator said that what may delay the Commission’s work is the lack of contractualization of the studies that are needed, hoping to advance until the end of this month and meet the deadline of presenting the proposal for the new airport between next December and January.
