Barcelona Airport has closed the best November in its history with 3.8 million passengers. This is the big aeronautical headline of the week for Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat. Exactly 3,831,469 passengers have flown to or from the city's two air terminals, and 25,169 aircraft have taken off and landed on its three runways in the 30 days of last month.
These record figures for the facility are also a symbolic closing. The end of the pandemic and post-pandemic stage that seriously affected airlines and the airport. Now, for the first time, there is growth compared to 2019, considered until now the last normal year in global commercial aviation.
These positive data, which represent 20% more passengers compared to 2022 so far this year, have been revealed by Eva Valenzuela, director since last June of the second most important airport in the Aena network.
She did so in what was her first public appearance, beyond specific and protocolary interventions in events such as the presentation of new routes, as was the case of the arrival of China's Shenzen Airlines last August.
Valenzuela, from Mallorca, is an aeronautical engineer from the Polytechnic University of Madrid. She completed the General Management Program at IESE, an MBA from the Escola Superior Balear, and the Finance for Executives Program at INSEAD Business School in Fontainebleau. She joined Aena almost 18 years ago through Palma Airport, something almost logical for someone born in Alcudia and who has opted for aeronautics. After holding different responsibilities at Son Sant Joan until 2017, she was appointed director of Menorca Airport, a position she held until 2020, when she was recruited by the ADP group, a French company that manages the three airports and the heliport of Paris and which, through its international subsidiary, manages 150 airports in fifty countries, making it the second airport authority worldwide in terms of passenger numbers.
Being Deputy CEO of the international division and Deputy Head of Operations for the entire group during the worst of Covid-19 was an enormous challenge for this engineer, who was brought back by the Spanish airport operator last summer. That was when her predecessor in the management of Barcelona, Sonia Corrochano, was promoted to head of Airport Planning and Regulatory Control of the General Directorate of Airports of Aena.
Figures and strategies
At Tuesday's meeting in the Catalunya room of T2, the director recalled the figures for this recovery: of the airport's 3,831,469 users, 3,819,831 took commercial flights, and of these, 2,783,505 flew on international routes, with the rest being connecting travelers to the rest of Spain. On the other hand, regarding air cargo, November closed with 13,841 tons transported to and from El Prat, both in pure cargo planes and in the spaces for cargo (not luggage) in the holds of passenger planes.
Valenzuela indicated that her company was immersed in three main lines of action to improve the airport: innovation, decarbonization, and greater integration of the airport with the territory. In the field of innovation and improvements, she recalled that in the last six years, 400 million euros have been invested in improvement works. Of these, 100 have been exclusively allocated to improvements in T2, the 1968 terminal that underwent its first major expansion for the '92 Games and continued to grow through extensions at both ends until the opening of T1 in 2009.
Starting next summer, the new, much more advanced scanners will be operational at El PratIt was precisely recalled that next year the airport manager will celebrate 15 years since the inauguration of the new building, known asthe sword, with a series of events, many of them focused on the general public and airport users, for whom there will be clearly visible changes next year."Security checkpoints are a point of friction in travelers' experience when using airports", said the director in reference to how cumbersome it often is to access the boarding area due to security scanners. Starting next summer, the new, much more advanced scanners will be in operation, which will avoid having to remove liquids, creams, or electronic devices from travelers' hand luggage. "It will greatly lighten the flow of travelers and the experience at the filters will be simpler and more pleasant in both terminals," Valenzuela anticipated, also indicating that great strides are being made in improving airport management processes, and work is also being done on biometrics.
Decarbonize and integrate
So far, 20 million euros have been invested in a photovoltaic plant for electricity consumption in the terminals. It was also recalled that since 2021, airlines have had sustainable aviation fuel, SAF, available at El Prat, and that the airport is not an element alien to its environment and is increasingly integrated.
The director emphasizes that the airport has the utmost institutional respect regarding the much-debated issue of extending its runway closest to the coastThe new step in this aspect will be taken as soon as a new railway line comes into operation that connects the terminals with the city center and high-speed lines in just 20 minutes. Finally, the director wanted to emphasize that the airport has the utmost institutional respect regarding the much-debated issue of extending the runway closest to the coast. The growth of this would also lead to the construction of new airport facilities. "We are fully willing to contribute our knowledge and experience to the table discussing the issueand for that we have the best professionals in the world in the field," he acknowledged.
Capacity, intercontinental routes and handling
Barcelona Airport has an optimal capacity of 55 million passengers per year, 33 in T1 and 22 in T2. Everything seems to indicate that this year the 50 million mark will be comfortably exceeded. These 50 are also the number of intercontinental routes that have been operated this 2023, fifty destinations ranging from Santiago de Chile to Seoul, from Los Angeles to Singapore and from Dakar to Casablanca, as African destinations, even if they are in the Maghreb region, are also taken into account in this classification.
In the field of handling or ground assistance companies, it was confirmed that definitively in 2024 the two new companies to which Aena has awarded the concession for third-party services will come into operation: Menzies and Aviapartner, which will join one that has renewed: Groundforce. These three will be able to provide service to any airline operating at El Prat and will compete for those contracts. Three other airlines with a significant presence in Barcelona, Easyjet, Norwegian and Ryanair, have their own ground assistance service that only works for them. Now it remains to be seen whether IAG, whose subsidiary Iberia Airport Services lost the Barcelona concession (and that of all major Spanish airports except Madrid-Barajas) opts to provide self-handling service to the group's companies: Iberia, British Airways, Level and especially Vueling, which has more than 40% of the market at El Prat, or whether these airlines contract one of the three third-party handling companies for their ground needs in T1.
In any case, for the airport director and her team, November 2023 has marked a turning point for a facility that is once again flying high.
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