Lisbon, which has long planned a new airport to relieve its preset over-crowded near-dowtown airport, has now seen the number of possible sites spiral up to 17.
The Portuguese capital, which originally planned to convert an airbase at Montijo, across the Tagus River from the capital, into a new civil airport ran into heavy opposition even as it appeared that construction would begin just before the pandemic. Opponents cited distance, environmental concerns and more.
Over the past five years, more possible sites have been added and some discarded, with the total now up to 17. More than 700 sites were proposed in a call for citizen suggestions; the 17 include sites as far from Lisbon as the seaside city of Sintra.
A government decision will soon cut the number of possibilities to a more reasonable number, but some skeptics are starting to wonder if Lisbon will ever have a second airport.
