Lisbon, Dec. 17, 2024 (Lusa) - The chairman of Portugal's airports operator ANA, José Luís Arnaut, said on Tuesday that he was "very optimistic" about the construction of the new Lisbon airport in Alcochete, having delivered the concessionaire's proposal, which the government has until 17 January to analyse.
"We're very optimistic," José Luís Arnaut told reporters as he left the ceremony that marked the delivery of the report with ANA - Aeroportos de Portugal's conditions for the construction of Luís de Camões Airport, at Alcochete's shooting range, on the south bank of the River Tagus.
The document, stored on a tablet, was handed over to the ministers for housing and infrastructure, Miguel Pinto Luz, and finance, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, at government headquarters in Lisbon.
ANA also presented a map with a representation of the airport, with four runways, which officials analysed at the end of the ceremony, while those responsible for the airport management company answered a few questions from journalists, but without giving any details about the document they handed over, such as the cost of the infrastructure.
"We'll wait until 17 January for the government to give its opinion [on the document]," said José Luís Arnaut.
The head of the airports concessionaire guaranteed that the deadlines for the process are "all being met", as he had already assured that they would be, and when asked if the airport operator has the "good will" to build in Alcochete, he was peremptory: "All of it".
"We're going to talk now [with the government] about the content of the dossier, but we're very happy, after this time of work, with our report and this proposal that will be the start, in fact, of the work with the government," said ANA CEO Thierry Ligonnière.
ANA, owned by French group, VINCI, which won the contract for management of Portuguese airports in 2012 in a 50-year concession, had presented a proposal for the construction of a new airport at Montijo Air Base (Setúbal district).
In May, the government approved the construction of a new airport for the Lisbon region at the Alcochete Shooting Range, following the recommendation of the Independent Technical Commission (CTI).
At the time of the announcement, the executive said that the process would be launched with the airport concessionaire, ANA/Vinci, to assess the timeline for the development of the new infrastructure, "study the technical solution of a flexible model", the accessibility model, detail the total investment required, "study a financing model without a contribution from the state budget" and "assess the model for transferring traffic from the current Humberto Delgado Airport, after the new airport comes into operation".
In 2025, according to the state budget proposal, the government will go ahead with ‘basic studies’ to support the technical solutions for implementing the new airport.
The government estimates that the new Luís de Camões Airport will be operational in 2034, which is less optimistic than the CTI, which pointed to the completion of the first runway in 2030 and a total cost of €6.105 billion.
As for the cost, the government also believes that the CTI is too optimistic, and estimates that it will be somewhere between the figure indicated by the commission led by Rosário Partidário and the €8bn to €9bn estimated by ANA.
Miguel Pinto Luz guaranteed that the government is committed to ensuring that the costs of the new airport do not affect the state budget, believing that it will be possible to pay for the investment with "the resources released by the concession, until the end of the concession".
Today, the minister of finance said that the government is looking for "the burden on the state budget to be as limited as possible, if possible even without any impact on taxpayers".
"We'll see what the report says about that," emphasised the minister, guaranteeing that the executive will "always act in the pursuit of the public interest".
MPE/AYLS // AYLS
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