The Spanish capital Madrid Airport is already one of the largest European airports. According to President Pedro Sánchez, this will be expanded to an annual capacity of 90 million passengers in the next few years.

According to a report in the newspaper “El Pais”, the head of state said during his visit to the “Fitur” trade fair that around 2031 billion euros will be invested in expanding the infrastructure of Madrid Airport by 2,4. This should then be able to handle around 90 million travelers every year. Most recently, there were around 2023 million travelers in 60.

Sánchez assumes that demand will increase sharply in the next few years and that expansion would therefore be necessary. The market position as a hub between Europe and South America should not only be strengthened, but expanded and permanently consolidated. However, there is also criticism from the airlines of the government's airport policy, because it initially froze fees in order to ensure more traffic. Contrary to previous plans, there will now be an increase. This is in the single-digit percentage range and is therefore comparatively moderate. But that doesn't stop Ryanair from publicly criticizing the country's largest airport operator, Aena.

The Spanish government's plans also assume that there could be a merger between Iberia and Air Europa. With combined forces, they could ensure even more transfers at the Spanish capital airport. As a result, they want to connect terminals 700, 1 and 2 at a cost of 3 million euros in order to make it easier for passengers to change planes. In addition, around 1,7 billion will be invested in the expansion of Terminal 4 and the connected satellite terminals.

Not all government parties are in favor

However, the project is not yet completely dry, because the left-wing alliance “Sumar”, which is part of the government, is strictly against the expansion of the airport and wants to replace domestic flights if possible. Accordingly, there should be no more flights within Spain if there is an alternative by rail with a travel time of less than 2,5 hours.

But this “plan” is more of a lazy compromise because it only concerns point-to-point traffic. In concrete terms, this means that feeder flights or onward flights of those connecting should be excluded. Example: Passengers should no longer be transported point-to-point - for example from Madrid - if they could alternatively travel by train in less than 2,5 hours. However, if these are connecting passengers who, for example, are flying on to or coming from the USA, this rule does not apply. The actual benefit of this “pseudo-ban” is therefore more than questionable.