Lisbon airport “worst in the world” in terms of punctuality
Portuguese airline TAP’s Board Chairman, Miguel Frasquilho warned on Friday that if “nothing is done” Lisbon’s international airport would be “the worst in the world in terms of punctuality” within two to three years.
Miguel Frasquilho made his comments in an interview with Radio Renascença where he said that the punctuality index for this year was less than 50% in Lisbon, believing that: “important improvements” would be necessary until the city’s second and complementary airport at Montijo was operational in 2022.
TAP Portugal has loudly criticised the existing limitations at the capital’s airport officially known as Humberto Delgado International Airport and unofficially known simply as Portela.
The airport has undergone considerable modernisation and expansion over the past 10 years with more gates and a modern shopping area with bars, cafés and restaurants. However, the boom in tourism in Portugal in recent years and the introduction of new short term flights by TAP and low-cost airlines Easy Jet and Ryanair as well as additional long-haul flights to and from the United States has meant the existing infrastructure is now wholly inadequate to meet current demand.
TAP blames a large part of delays for the fact that the national carrier is now at the back of the class when it comes to punctuality tables in airline rankings.
On 29 November during the Essentia Live #1 Conference: “Global Brands, Tourism Destinations and Real Estate” held in Lisbon and for which Essential Business was a media partner, Miguel Frasquilho called for “improvements” in the short term at the airport taking into account that the infrastructure is already “pretty congested”.
“This year, the Humberto Delgado Airport in Lisbon will see around 30 million passengers which will hit a new record, but the structure is already fairly overloaded and so improvements will have to be made in the short term,” he said.
Miguel Frasquilho went on to say that many of the delays registered on TAP flights were not the fault of the company itself but rather the airport and for which the national carrier had to pay compensation.
