A new £7 billion airport is set to open in Portugal and be built across a river. The Portuguese government has announced that a new airport will be constructed in Lisbon

The government has announced that it has chosen the municipality of Alcochete, on the south bank of the Tagus estuary, to build Lisbon’s new airport, which is a very popular holiday hotspot.

According to the moderate right-wing Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, the new airport is to be called Luis de Camoes, after the great 16th-century Portuguese poet.

The airport will “completely replace” the existing Humberto Delgado airport in the north of the capital. 

The investment is estimated at around eight billion euros, according to the Portuguese media.

This site was also chosen by a committee of experts appointed by the previous Socialist government to study a solution to the saturation of the current airport infrastructure to the north of the capital.

Lisbon airport, which has set a string of passenger records, has been pushing back its saturation point for several years. 

Passenger numbers, which have more than doubled in 10 years, passed the 33 million mark last year.

The Prime Minister also indicated that he had instructed the company that manages the country’s rail and road infrastructure to work on a project to build a third crossing at Lisbon to link the two banks of the Tagus river and a high-speed rail link between Lisbon and Madrid.

‌Previous governments had on several occasions announced different locations for a new airport. 

The Alcochete site had already been announced by a previous government, before being abandoned in 2010 as the country sank into debt crisis.

The project allows for the expansion to four runways, doubling the expected 90 to 95 flights per hour. With regard to deadlines, the government has set a timeframe of between 36 and 46 months for all contractual obligations to be finalised.