“International studies clearly show that journey times of more than 30 minutes are not competitive for secondary airports”, he said.

Beja is at least one hour 40 minutes from Lisbon.

Pedro Marques was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the opening of the Portugal Air Summit, which is being held at Ponte de Sor aerodrome near Portalegre until Saturday.

The minister praised the aeronautic cluster in no Alentejo, but that the government wanted to push ahead with the works in Montijo “next year” to have it up and running in 2021 or 2022.

Montijo is currently an air force base so little work would need to be done compared with building a new airport from scratch.