Lisbon Airport's Stopgap: a €233M South Pier, €20M on Terminal 2 and €388M Planned to 2028

Four price tags for one programme

Press coverage of the Lisbon works uses at least four figures, and each describes a different scope. €233 million is the main contract, signed with a consortium led by Mota-Engil that also includes VINCI Construction Grands Projets, Alves Ribeiro and HCI. VINCI Construction belongs to the same group as ANA's owner, VINCI Airports. €250 million is ANA's "global" value for the South Pier and the renovation of the Central Pier, first given with its 2024 results in May 2025. About €300 million is the value of all works under way at Terminal 1, according to ANA in January 2026 (Jornal de Negócios, 7 January 2026). More than €300 million is VINCI's own figure for its whole "UPGRADE" plan at the airport, in a release of 16 January 2026.

None of these is an audited total. They also predate the contract: Ligonnière spoke of €200–300 million in December 2022, ANA planned about €200 million for Terminal 1 in 2024 when it presented its 2023 results, and Jornal Económico used €300 million in February 2024. A fifth €300 million figure belongs to a different subject entirely. The government's technical commission estimated in 2023 that demolishing Portela after the new airport opens would cost about €300 million of public money.

By 7 January 2026 ANA had executed €40 million of the South Pier project, with 150 workers on site and a peak of 600 expected. A €16 million package for the departures check-in area was due to start next. In August 2026 Martifer disclosed in its half-year report that it had won the steel structure, roofing and façades for the South apron and the South and Central piers: 3,924 tonnes of steel, 17,700 m² of façade and 45,000 m² of cladding. Martifer did not disclose the value.

What the South Pier buys

The pier extends Terminal 1 to the south by about 600 linear metres. VINCI's contract release lists 33,000 m² of new building, 10 boarding bridges, 12 aircraft stands, a remodelled Central Pier linked to the new structure, and a redesign of the South bus gates. Construction was planned for December 2024. A challenge by the Ministério Público delayed the start by several months without stopping it, and completion is now scheduled for the end of 2027. ANA has not said which part of the pier will serve Schengen or non-Schengen flights.

Divided out, the main contract costs about €7,060 per square metre of new pier and €23.3 million per boarding bridge (both derived). Those ratios overstate the per-unit price, since the contract also covers the Central Pier and the bus gates, but they show the scale. One discrepancy remains open. ECO reported on 28 September 2026 that the Terminal 1 works include "11 more jet bridges and three parking stands", against the contract's 10 bridges and 12 stands. We use the contract figures.

The main gain is fewer bus transfers. Archived ANA pages put Terminal 1 at about 47 departure gates, of which about 17 had boarding bridges. If none of those is lost in the Central Pier rework, the airport would have about 27 bridge gates at the end of 2027 (derived, indicative). Jornal de Negócios reported that the 10 bridges remove "the need to use buses" at those gates. The contract also rebuilds the South bus gates, so bus boarding continues across the rest of the terminal. ANA publishes no share of passengers boarded by bus, and no figure for how many more passengers an hour the pier can process.

Terminal 2: €20 million on a terminal with a closing date

Terminal 2 opened in 2007 for low-cost airlines and is reached from Terminal 1 by shuttle. On 7 January 2026 ANA inaugurated an enlarged Schengen departure area there with four new gates, seven renovated ones and biometric boarding at every gate. The phase cost €12 million, of which €4.7 million was spent in 2024. VINCI's release of 16 January 2026 puts total investment in Terminal 2 since 2020 at €20 million. Press reports used one figure or the other, often without saying which.

ANA's expansion report of 31 July 2025, later posted by the transport institute IMT, says Terminal 2 needs no further building to support 45 movements an hour. It proposes three remote stands for medium-sized aircraft west of the terminal. No closure of Terminal 2 is planned before the airport as a whole is decommissioned. Its border post has one exit control with four manual and six automated positions (Euronews, 8 December 2025).

The capacity half: 38, 40, 42 and maybe 45

The government ordered the capacity increase in two resolutions. RCM 201/2023, published on 28 December 2023, set a list of works with deadlines, including a rapid-exit taxiway and multiple runway entries. RCM 67/2024, published on 27 May 2024 alongside the decision to build the new airport, set a target of up to 45 movements an hour plus two at Cascais. ANA delivered its plan on 1 August 2025. The government announced receipt on 5 August without publishing a cost, and the report reached the public only when IMT posted it in February 2026.

ANA's report sizes the airside need at 98 stands for 40 movements an hour, 103 for 42 and 106 for 45. The two higher steps depend on a new North apron and pier, which requires clearing the military aerodrome at Figo Maduro and moving cargo to the old runway 17 threshold. A new control tower east of runway 02/20 is the base case. The airspace sets its own ceiling: NAV's Point Merge design, live since May 2024, is limited to 46 movements an hour combined, and the 42 and 45 scenarios exceed it unless NAV expands the airspace. The Council of Ministers approved up to €30 million on 10 July 2025 to move Figo Maduro to Montijo by the end of 2028.

The licensing has been slower than the building. On 22 January 2024 the environment agency APA ruled that the South Pier, Central Pier and South apron did not need an environmental impact assessment. On 2 December 2024 it ruled the opposite for the outer taxiway, the Taxiway U extension and multiple entries to runway 20, because those works allow more flights; the study had to use 38 movements as its baseline and assess up to 45. In January 2026 ANA agreed with APA to split the assessment in two. The study for 38 to 40 was filed in early June 2026, with works from early 2027 if approved. The study for 40 to 42 is due in early 2027.

The 45 target has become less certain. Speaking to Parliament on 28 January 2026, Ligonnière described 42 as the level the airport would run at when traffic moves to the new airport and did not mention 45. ANA chairman José Luís Arnaut repeated "42, and later 45" in September 2026, saying the conditions depended on NAV. The secretary of state said in January 2026 that the value of the capacity expansion was "still undefined". The infrastructure minister's target for the existing airport is 40–45 million passengers a year, against 36.1 million in 2025.

From €1.15 billion to €233 million

The current programme is the smaller survivor of an older one. On 8 January 2019 ANA and the State signed a €1.15 billion agreement, entirely privately financed, to be spent by 2028: €650 million for phase 1 of Humberto Delgado and €500 million for a civil airport at the Montijo air base, plus €156 million for Air Force compensation and access works. Portela was to reach 48 movements an hour (VINCI; DN gave 44) and Montijo 24. The government targeted 2022 for Montijo's opening. The Portela list included more stands (60 to 89), new piers, more contact stands, new taxiways, the closure of runway 17/35 and the removal of Figo Maduro.

The plan collapsed on 2 March 2021, when the regulator ANAC refused to assess Montijo because two affected municipalities, Moita and Seixal, had issued negative opinions. ANA had spent about €16 million on Montijo by the end of 2020. Some of the 2019 Portela items happened anyway. Runway 17/35, which carried 0.1% of flights in 2018, was closed for good in 2019, and two rapid-exit taxiways were built at night in the first half of 2020. Most of the rest reappears in the 2023 and 2024 resolutions on a later timetable: deadlines originally set for 2018–2021 now run to 2025–2027.

Who pays: the R factor and the charge cap

Lisbon's charges are not set on a regulated asset base. The concession caps the average regulated revenue per passenger for the Lisbon group, which includes Madeira, the Azores and Beja, and indexes the cap to EU inflation. Since 2024 the index is adjusted by a ratio called R: eligible capital investment divided by the Lisbon group's EBITDA over the previous five years. If R is 0.8 or more, the cap rises at inflation plus 1% a year. Below 0.2 it rises at inflation minus 2%.

ANA's annual reports for 2023 and 2024 state that R was below 0.2 for 2018–2022, so the Lisbon group cap moves at inflation minus 2% for 2024–2028. In other words, the low investment of the years after Montijo's collapse is now holding Lisbon's charges down. The same reports say eligible capex and EBITDA for 2023–2027 will set the factor for 2029–2033. ANA has not said so, but the arithmetic means the South Pier and the 2026–28 plan can raise allowed Lisbon charges from 2029, six to eight years before the planned move to Luís de Camões (our inference). ANA's 2022 report describes the 2023 cap as "inflation plus 2%", which conflicts with the later reports; we have not resolved it.

The numbers behind the cap are easy to confuse. The authorised 2025 cap for the Lisbon group was €14.652 per passenger, and the group collected €14.59. Lisbon airport on its own collected €15.35 (ANA regulated-revenue report, 20 May 2026). ANA's proposal for 2027 is a group cap of €14.80, with Lisbon's charges up 0.67%, still awaiting ANAC. At €15.35 across 36.1 million passengers, Lisbon generated about €554.6 million of regulated revenue in 2025, so the €233 million contract equals about five months of it (derived).

The spending also has to be read against payouts. ANA S.A. invested €86.4 million in 2023 and €100.8 million in 2024 across all its airports, while paying €728.4 million in dividends over the same two years (Observador, 26 May 2025): 3.9 times its capex (derived). ANA's group net profit was a record €599.3 million in 2025. The Tribunal de Contas found in January 2024 that the 2012 privatisation had not safeguarded the public interest; ANA's chairman told Parliament in June 2024 that some investments had been postponed "in agreement with governments".

Across the network the planned spending is uneven. Lisbon receives €10.75 per 2025 passenger over the three years, Porto €4.73 and Faro €6.09 (derived). Porto has grown 28.3% since 2019 against Lisbon's 15.7%, and our Porto airport article found its runway capacity rising from 24 to 26 movements an hour at the end of 2026. Faro's binding problem is seasonality, as the Faro airport analysis showed, so its lower figure is less surprising. The Azores receive the most per passenger, €23.58, in the year after Ryanair left.

How long the stopgap has to last

The new pier opens at the end of 2027. ANA's technical report schedules Luís de Camões for mid-2037, or late 2036 with faster approvals; the government's planning date is 2035 and the minister has asked for 2034. That leaves seven to nine and a half years of use for the pier before traffic moves (derived). Our new-airport tracker covers why each of those dates is contested.

What happens to the assets at closure is not public. A legal opinion prepared for the government's technical commission, reported by ECO in December 2023, says the State may end the Humberto Delgado concession before commercial flights stop, with compensation due to the concessionaire, and that changes requested by the State trigger financial rebalancing. No published clause sets a residual value for the stopgap investments. The land is public. The infrastructure minister said in October 2025 that it would be cleaned up for housing, green space and a riverside park, and "will not be used to pay for the new airport".

Other cities have run the same race with less money. Berlin's operator planned up to €50 million to modernise Tegel around 2013. BER then opened about nine years late, Tegel carried a record 24.2 million passengers in 2019, and it closed on 8 November 2020; the site is becoming housing and a technology campus. Hong Kong chose Chek Lap Kok in October 1989 and closed Kai Tak on 6 July 1998. Istanbul's Atatürk was running far above its design capacity when traffic moved to the new airport in 2019, and its operator TAV received €389 million for the 18 months it lost on its lease. Mexico City is the case after cancellation: it is spending about MXN 10 billion remodelling its existing airport after scrapping the Texcoco project in 2018.

What passengers get in the meantime

Lisbon ranked 274th of 279 airports in AirHelp's 2026 score, down from 244th of 250 in 2025, and 91st in Skytrax's 2026 World Airport Awards. Both rankings rest heavily on punctuality, where Lisbon had the lowest departure performance among large European airports in 2024 and 2025. Border queues added to the pressure after the EU's Entry/Exit System began on 12 October 2025. The government suspended it at Lisbon for three months from 30 December 2025, began enlarging the border areas on 29 May 2026, and cited works in operational areas as one cause of 90-minute queues on 17 May 2026. The police reported arrival waits of 30 to 60 minutes at the three main airports at the end of May.

The works will not change the runway for at least another year. Lisbon's low-cost share of 24% in mid-2026 reflects the same constraint: without spare slots, airlines that want to grow in Portugal have done so at Porto and Faro. The pier improves how passengers board aircraft that already have slots. More flights depend on the environmental decisions for 40 and 42 movements, on NAV's airspace, and on who controls TAP's slot portfolio after the TAP privatisation.

Noise, the courts and the risks to the timetable

The Ministério Público's action at the Supreme Administrative Court, reported on 9 January 2025, asks for the APA exemption of January 2024 and RCM 201/2023 to be annulled and for no significant expansion to proceed without a full environmental assessment. It argues that the works were split into pieces to avoid one; the last full assessment of the airport dates from 2006. The action did not request an injunction, and we found no ruling by October 2026. The NGO ZERO asked the court to decide urgently in August 2025.

The noise programmes are small next to the construction budget. The state-funded Menos Ruído programme has €10 million for insulation, with protocols signed on 22 January 2026 with Almada, Lisbon, Loures and Vila Franca de Xira; Lisbon's share is €2,798,730 and individual grants are capped at €1,000, €800 or €600. ANA has proposed €2.5 million for insulation through the same fund and about €1 million, then up to €4 million, for schools and health buildings. Lisbon's mayor Carlos Moedas has opposed 45 movements an hour and asked for compensation from VINCI. ZERO counted about 150 night movements a week in summer 2025 against a legal limit of 91.

The risks to the programme are specific. A court ruling against the 2024 exemption would reach works already built. A negative or delayed decision on the 38 to 40 study would push the first capacity step beyond 2027. NAV's airspace limits make 45 movements uncertain whatever ANA builds. A later opening of Luís de Camões would lengthen the life of the stopgap and strengthen the case for more spending at Portela; an earlier one would shorten the payback on the pier.

What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts

Travelers should expect Lisbon to feel like a building site until the end of 2027 and a crowded airport after that. The South Pier will put more passengers on boarding bridges, but it does not add flights, so peak-season delays and bus transfers continue. Terminal 2 is newly refurbished for Schengen low-cost departures. Non-EU visitors should leave time for the border. Our Lisbon travel guide covers getting into the city from the airport.

Tourism businesses and investors should treat Lisbon's capacity as fixed at 38 movements an hour until at least 2027 and 42 as the realistic ceiling before the new airport. The €64 million tagged to capacity in 2026–28 is a floor; the full cost of 40 and 42 has not been published. The R factor ties today's investment to Lisbon's charges from 2029, so higher spending now can mean higher airline costs in the airport's final years. The thresholds that would change this view are an APA decision on the 38 to 40 study, a court ruling on the 2024 exemption, a published cost for the 40 and 42 steps, and any slip in the Luís de Camões date.

Journalists and analysts can cite: the €233 million main contract (VINCI, 27 November 2024) with a four-company consortium; €250 million for the South and Central piers; about €300 million for all Terminal 1 works; €12 million for the 2025–26 Terminal 2 phase and €20 million since 2020; ANA's 2026–28 plan of €687 million, of which Lisbon €388 million and €64 million for capacity (ECO, 6 October 2026); ANA capex of €128 million in 2025; and the inflation-minus-2% cap for 2024–2028. Do not repeat "€1 billion for Portela", a 2026 opening for the pier, 50 million passengers at the existing airport, or 45 movements by 2030. This article adds a series finding: Lisbon receives the largest share of ANA's investment, but per passenger it ranks behind the Azores and Beja's near-empty terminal, and only a sixth of its planned money is aimed at the constraint that defines it. City-level context is in our Lisbon tourism statistics.