ANA to lose €20 million from full-to-capacity airport

ANA – Aeroportos de Portugal – the company that manages Portugal’s airports, estimates that it will have to refuse over 700,000 places next summer because Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado airport is full to capacity, representing a loss of €20 million.

This is according to the director of ANA, Thierry Ligonnière (pictured) in an interview with the online business news daily Dinheiro Vivo.
“Unfortunately, the time being taken to select a solution to increase Lisbon’s air traffic capacity is causing flights being rejected for next year.
“We have worked out that 730,000 places will not be accepted and some of these concern seats on routes that serve hubs and that could have given an added connectivity to Lisbon airport and it is urgent that this problem should be resolved”, said Thierry Ligonniére on the sidelines of the Portuguese Association of Travel and Tourism Agencies (APAVT) which took place in Ponta Delgado in Azores.
Ligonniére said that ANA was “doing all it could” to improve the operational part and be more productive but for the airport to receive more passengers, taking into account the limitations, the director of the company owned by the French holding Vinci and suggested that airlines use larger aircraft.