‘We dreamed of a new airport for 50 years,’ the infrastructure minister said in July 2026. The search has produced several sites, studies and images over the decades. Some still circulate as if they were current.
Illustration — not to scale, not the airport design
A schematic map with several candidate sites and one chosen. Pins are symbolic, not real locations.
Illustration: Luís de Camões Airport Observatory (original work).
The 2024 two-runway figure, split by runway
- First runway3,231 € million
- Second runway2,874 € million
Total for two runways: 6,105 € million Status: Historical / superseded
The 2024 decision
After an Independent Technical Commission examined strategic options, the Government chose the Campo de Tiro de Alcochete in May 2024. It preferred it to Vendas Novas because Alcochete lies entirely on public land (Vendas Novas would have required expropriations), had previously received an environmental declaration (since lapsed), is closer to central Lisbon and nearer the main road and rail links.
Why not two airports
The Government rejected a two-airport solution — such as a complementary airport at Montijo — arguing that it would double negative environmental effects, while a single airport sits in a less densely populated area. It noted that Lisbon is the European capital with the second-highest number of residents exposed to aircraft noise.
Alcochete before 2024
Alcochete is not a new idea. An airport solution at the eastern end of the range received a conditional favourable environmental declaration in 2010. The March 2026 validation places the new airport in that same area — but the 2026 design is different and needs its own assessment.
Old images
Renders of the earlier Alcochete studies and of the Montijo proposal are still online. In our image register each is labelled by design vintage, and none is presented as today’s airport.