Protestors call for end to night flights; speedy closure of city airport
Dozens of exhausted residents turned out near Lisbon airport yesterday to demand changes to the toxic status quo, particularly when it comes to night flights.
The protest, organized by the “Aeroporto fora, Lisboa melhora” (Airport out, Lisbon improves) platform, brought together citizens from the Areeiro, Alvalade, Campolide, Campo de Ourique, Camarate, Lumiar and São João da Talha neighbourhoods, who shouted against authorities’ inaction waving placards daubed with angry slogans.
Choosing a spot near the exit of the Airport metro station, the group demanded an end to night flights, the non-expansion and speedy closure of the airport, as well as the urgent construction of a new Lisbon airport outside the city. They were also calling for a new green lung in the city (to take the space occupied by runways).
Sérgio Morais, from the platform, explained the protest stemmed from ‘interim plan to actually EXPAND the Humberto Delgado airport’. “It was indicated that the works will cost €300 million and last three years – for a structure that is said to be temporary”, he said – pointing to the likelihood that temporary would stretch well into the next decade.
“We are demanding several things, but the main thing is that this airport has to move to the location of the new airport. We are residents affected by this airport and expanding it is completely scandalous,” he said.
According to Morais – and according to figures from the Independent Technical Commission – there are around 300,000 to 380,000 people affected by aircraft noise, which carries across the city into areas to the north such as Camarate, Póvoa de Santa Iria and Loures.
The noise caused by airplanes means that the citizens of these areas “sleep badly, classes are interrupted, medical appointments are interrupted, the smell of fuel and hypertension is also related to noise”.
In his opinion, the problem has become “much worse in recent years”, and he recalls that the platform has already met with ANAC (the National Civil Aviation Authority) and hopes to meet with Vinci (owner of ANA Portugal).
“I think there has to be a reaction (on the part of the authorities), because it is so serious that the solution can’t be put off any longer,” he told Lusa, acknowledging that the concessionaire ‘usually says very little’ but that the Lisbon council has already approved a motion demanding an end to night flights.
Morais also acknowledged that the flights “violate the very laws that the government decreed”, considering that the exception ordinance that allows 92 flights a week is obsolete given that environmental associations have already measured 160 night flights a week.
Catarina Grilo, who has lived in the Alvalade neighborhood for nearly 26 years, told Lusa that when the building she lives in was built in 1968, it wasn’t expected that the airport “would have the number of movements it has today”. Since the tourism boom however, noise and night flights have increased massively. She told Lusa that she cannot use her balcony and already has two sets of double-glazed windows in each window – an expense she believes should be compensated by ANA/Vinci. In short, life in her apartment is like living “in a bunker and at a level where there is no longer any compensation possible”.
“The noise has to decrease and so does the pollution”, she said. “There are people who used to live in this neighborhood and when they moved to other areas of the city, which aren’t as affected, they noticed that there was a brutal reduction in the amount of dust coming into their homes, dust that we’re breathing in,” she pointed out.
This is where no report ever alludes to the shocking study undertaken before the pandemic, and rarely mentioned anywhere.
Thus, remaining firmly on the subject of night flights, Catarina Grilo also stressed the need to comply with the exception regime, which is being “violated every week”.
Ricardo Felner, also taking part in yesterday’s protest, said he fears that the situation will continue until “a catastrophe happens” and on that day “the interference and bureaucratic obstacles will disappear, but the responsibility of all the PS and PSD politicians who have governed the country in recent years will not.
“Quality tourism doesn’t happen with airports inside the city. It is not done against the rights of the people who live here; this is a disgrace,” he said, stressing that ”as long as someone with power doesn’t sue the state in court, as long as the European Union doesn’t get involved and as long as a catastrophe doesn’t happen, (this nightmare) won’t end.”
According to the law, flights can only exceptionally take place between midnight and six in the morning. However, in the summer the rule was consistenly broken, as denounced by the environmental association ZERO.
City councillors from PCP communists (João Ferreira), and PAN, People-Animals-Nature, (António Morgado Valente), also joined the protest to express their support for this largely ignored cause.
In September, for example, Lisbon City Council unanimously approved a motion advocating a reduction in the number of movements per hour at Humberto Delgado Airport and refusing any increase in airport capacity. Yet nothing has changed. In fact, the airport is ‘expanding’ into the area previously taken up by the military Figo Maduro airbase.
Source material: LUSA
