Portugal will have a new international airport. It will be built in the municipality of Alcochete, where an old military air base is located, about forty kilometers east of the capital Lisbon and should be operational by 2034, according to what Prime Minister Luís Montenegro announced today. The communication comes at the end of the final details discussed with an independent technical commission, after decades of waiting.

"I just hope that this is truly the final decision, and that it is not called into question by subsequent executives, as we have seen happen too often in recent years", said the director of Portugal's tourism confederation, Francisco Calheiros. 

The new airport will replace the "Humberto Delgado" international airport in Lisbon, which has now reached its structural limit of expansion in space and therefore also of capacity to accommodate passengers. A situation in which there are numerous airports located in capitals or metropolises and which have less growth potential as they are embedded in the urban core.

The decision to build a new airport therefore arises from the need to have a more modern infrastructure, less costly from a management point of view and more efficient. "The Government sees the option of a single international airport (in the capital) as the most suitable solution for the strategic needs of the country", explained Prime Minister Montenegro. The cost of the work is expected to be around 9 billion euros.