Lisbon, March 11, 2026 (Lusa) - Around 12% of slot requests for the summer season at Lisbon airport were not met, according to NAV's president, who warned that infrastructure limitations are penalising the country and the tourism sector.
In an interview with Lusa, Pedro Ângelo explained that, for the summer season, requests were made for 164,000 slots, i.e. times allocated to airlines for take-offs and landings at airports, of which 147,000 were allocated.
‘Requests were made for 164,000 slots, but only 147,000 were met, and I am referring only to the summer season [IATA summer], which runs from the last Sunday in March to the last Saturday in October,’ said the chairman of the board of directors of the company responsible for air traffic management in Portugal.
The difference corresponds to about 12% of requests that could not be accommodated, reflecting, according to the official, the saturation of the Lisbon airport infrastructure.
Within the allocated time slots, he added, ‘20,000 were placed on a waiting list in anticipation of the allocation of a more commercially viable slot.’
The difficulty in providing schedules that are more attractive to airlines, in his opinion, has economic consequences.
‘The fact that Lisbon airport is currently unable to offer “premium” hours to many operators has, in my personal opinion, greatly penalised the country and tourism in particular,’ he said.
According to the official, several international airlines have expressed interest in operating to Lisbon, including carriers from the Middle East, but they end up running into difficulties in obtaining commercially advantageous schedules.
Nevertheless, he added that new connections are planned for the 2026 summer season, with Brazilian airline Gol starting to fly to Rio de Janeiro and Canadian airline WestJet starting operations to Canada.
Despite these new routes, Pedro Ângelo has acknowledged that the lack of capacity at the main national airport may be limiting the attraction of new air links to Portugal.
On the operational side, NAV is also preparing for another summer of heavy pressure on the air navigation system, as traffic continues to grow.
According to the company's president, strengthening human resources has been a priority amid a shortage of air traffic controllers across several European countries.
‘We currently have 385 air traffic controllers, out of a total of around 945 employees,’ he said.
The company has been stepping up the recruitment of new professionals, hiring around 24 controllers annually, a number limited by internal training capacity.
To mitigate the lack of resources in recent years, NAV has also implemented measures such as extending the operational age of controllers from 58 to 60 and using overtime.
‘We have had significant overtime consumption in the company, and it is a weakness that we want to mitigate,’ he acknowledged.
According to Pedro Ângelo, the goal is to gradually reduce overtime use as new controllers join the operation.
In this regard, he said that in 2025 they managed to ‘achieve a stagnation in the growth in the number of overtime hours that had been seen over recent years’.
‘We believe that, with the number of hires we are promoting and the introduction of new controllers into the operation, we will be able to mitigate this issue of overtime in the medium term,’ he said.
SCR/ADB // ADB.JNM
Lusa/Fim
