On this matter, voters should know the position of the candidates for the presidency of Porto’s City Hall before the municipal elections.
In 2007, the Associação Comercial do Porto (ACP) − led by the future president of Porto’s City Hall − with the legitimacy of the city having the country’s second airport, positioned itself against the waste of public money in the greenfield construction of a New Lisbon Airport, proposing instead the dual alternative with a detailed financial study (Universidade Católica), which proved that keeping Portela Airport operational would save €3.6 billion.
1 – The airport equation defined by ACP in 2007 has become even more critical today
Eighteen years ago, what was at stake was the rationality of airport investment in relation to expected demand and territorial equity in the approach to strategic projects, the same underlying issues that are now once again being raised.
In fact, on the one hand, Portela Airport has since been subject to significant improvement in airport infrastructure/accessibility, which, in case of closure, practically doubles the previous sunk investment and, on the other hand, the new NAL-Vinci solution (in Alcochete) generates an additional cost of €15 billion compared to the HUB-fusion innovation, which keeps Portela Airport functioning under conditions even more favorable than those of Sá Carneiro Airport, as follows:
- Lisbon Airport in the long term: sixty years from now, demand will reach 329,808 movements (Vinci projection), achieving its maturity stage. With the HUB-fusion, Portela (urban, medium-haul, no night flights) would process only 115,000 movements (about one third), while Alverca (long-haul) would handle the remainder.
- Porto Airport in the long term: under the same growth assumptions, Sá Carneiro would reach 152,321 movements (compared to Portela’s 115,000) and would continue to operate at night (two hours). Aircraft approach from the south — the most penalizing direction at both airports — is slightly worse in Porto: after crossing the river (Douro 0.6 km vs. Tagus 2 km), the overflight of urban areas is longer in Porto than in Lisbon (9.3 km vs. 7.7 km), and residential areas are closer to the runway threshold (0.6 km vs. 2.3 km).
2 – Portela Airport framed within the fusion reengineering will be more citizen-friendly than Sá Carneiro Airport and without weighty reasons that justify its closure:
2.1 – It will not be for efficiency: the innovative HUB-fusion with a capacity of 105 movements/hour will break the world record for a two-runway airport (90–95 movements/hour) and the new Alverca runway parallel to Portela’s, at 4,000 m, will be the most efficient in Europe because it has trajectories over water at both ends.
2.2 – It will not be for excess of air movements or for excessive and night noise: Portela-city airport will have fewer movements than Sá Carneiro and does not operate at night. Both airports, in the number of people affected by noise above 65 dB, are below the European average of those close to the city and processing more than 10–15 million passengers per year.
2.3 – It will not be for economic reasons: the current VINCI alternative of a two-runway airport separated by 2,390 m has an overall additional cost (airport + road/rail accessibility) of more than €15 billion compared to the HUB-fusion Alverca-Portela (which is more powerful).
2.4 – It will not be for speed: the HUB-fusion does not need military relocations, nor the Chelas-Barreiro bridge, and Alverca Airport has available area + 1/3 of the runway system + aircraft maintenance (OGMA) + station on the Northern Line.
2.5 – It will not be for environmental reasonableness: solving the noise of Portela-city above 65 dB (200–250 people) means insulating 100 homes (cost up to €0.5 million) or, absurdly, offering 100 new homes (cost up to €25 million), a drop in the ocean compared with the environmental impact (and cost) of relocating a large air firing range (7,500 ha), of a giant greenfield airport, of the largest road-rail bridge in Europe and of an extra 50 km of the Lisbon-Porto high-speed connection.
3 – Placing first territorial equity and the basic needs of the national population
The government can indebt the country so that VINCI − the largest European construction & concessions conglomerate − may build in Lisbon megalomaniac mobility projects or it can opt for the efficient HUB-fusion and, with the substantial savings, it can complete the High-Speed network (Lisbon-Madrid, Lisbon-Porto and Porto-Vigo connections) and, even so, there will be money left to address, in particular, the shortages of social housing throughout the country.
Porto is the capital of the most populous region and has the second largest airport, which means that its representatives have legitimacy to speak out about public spending and airport strategy with national impact.
In 2007, Porto’s economic forces were clear in their preference for a solution that added two airports (separated), keeping the existing Portela Airport, since it avoided an additional cost of almost €4 billion.
Today, there is the innovative added value of merging two airports instead of adding, which lowers the impact of Portela Airport to the level of Sá Carneiro Airport and avoids an additional cost four times greater than before. What then is leading Porto’s representatives now to remain silent?
Luis Janeiro, Professor at CATÓLICA-LISBON