Today’s ceremony includes the presence of the Minister for Planning and Infrastructure, Pedro Marques, the Mayor of Porto, Rui Moreira and the Chairman and CEO of ANA, Jorge Ponce de Leão. The event also includes a video statement of the Director General of the Airports Council International (ACI) Europe, Olivier Jankovec.

This year, Porto airport is for the tenth time in the top 3 of ACI’s European ranking, this time having actually been selected as the best airport in Europe in the category of airports with dimensions between 5 to 15 million passengers. In the 2006-2016 period, no other airport in the old continent has had more presences at the top of the rankings. In addition, growth in traffic volume has set new records year after year. To maintain the level of excellence, the quality of service and the ability to respond to the predictable increase in demand, ANA Aeroportos de Portugal (VINCI Airports) has a demanding plan of investments.

In addition to the presentation of the new investments and celebration of the prize for best airport in Europe for infrastructure with 5 to 15 million passengers by the ACI – Airports Council International, the Gold Medal of Merit will be awarded to the Airport’s Director, Fernando Vieira, by the Mayor of Porto.

ACI’s distinction comes within the scope of the Airport Service Quality (ASQ) study, the leading worldwide benchmark in the Evaluation of Passenger Satisfaction – 2016 Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Awards. The results of this study are based on questionnaires filled out by passengers who thus transmit their opinion about 34 indicators, namely regarding the services offered by the airports in terms of customer service, waiting times, staff courtesy, cleanliness of facilities and comfort.

These honours are additional positive features to Porto’s international attractiveness, adding to the recently won title of “Best European Destination 2017”, by European Best Destination.

In 2016, the volume of traffic at Porto Airport followed this positive dynamic and registered 9.4 million passengers, 16% more than in the previous year. To make this continuous, accelerated, double-digit growth sustainable, ANA presents an investment plan based on several key areas such as increased capacity in runway movement, processing of passengers/hour, and luggage/hour, boarding gates etc. The investment plan also includes an increase in the number of luggage belts, walk-through security screenings and check-in counters.

The runways, taxiways and platforms, the Passenger Terminal building, the operations buildings (cargo, handling, other) and the accesses and parking will also be targeted.

The amount of investment and its time delay will be defined according to the needs.