Barcelona Airport: the complexity of the last major expansion

In 1992, Barcelona airport reached ten million passengers for the first time, due to the extraordinary boost provided by the celebration of the Olympic Games. From the late 80s and early 90s, the airport underwent its first major expansion with the construction of terminals A and C, a new control tower, access roads, and parking lots, among other important technical and operational actions, being a strategic infrastructure that contributed to the enormous collective success that the Games represented for the city and the country. The extraordinary consensus and commitment of all institutions were key to defining and executing the first major transformation in record time given the demands of the Olympic date.

In the late 90s, significant traffic growth necessitated the definition and execution of a second major expansion. Defining the new Airport was not easy. It required great efforts. On June 19, 1998, it was unblocked with a "Joint Declaration of the Administrations for the Expansion of BCN-El Prat Airport." It should be noted that during this period, some decisions by the territory failed to contemplate future airport developments, such as locating the TAV station in the city of El Prat instead of the airport, which today is confirmed as mistaken due to the importance of intermodality in the fight against climate change, as well as an erroneous urban planning declaration in the Gavà Mar area clearly affected by aeronautical easements and which today hinder optimizing airport capacity. Finally, with the commissioning of the new terminal (2009), Barcelona and Catalonia had a large infrastructure with theoretical capacities of 55 million passengers and operational management of 90 mov/hour.

The extraordinary attractiveness of the territory served by the airport drove significant growth in recent years, up to 53.6 million passengers in 2019, close to the Master Plan limit of 55 million, with an air traffic management capacity of 78 mov/hour, far from the theoretical 90 mov/hour due to the restriction of using segregated runways to limit acoustic impact, mainly in Gavà Mar. The previous scenario necessitates a new revision of the Master Plan to define the third and, in my opinion, last possible major expansion of the airport.

We are facing a minor expansion in terms of investment and actions compared to the second development, but the solution is more complex for five reasons:

1. Greater number of pieces in the political puzzle, which requires greater consensus effort.
2. The need to balance the future of aviation with climate commitments.
3. Greater technical complexity due to the clear dependence between the decision made regarding the runway extension and the rest of the possible actions. The first and important consideration to take into account would be to evaluate whether extending the runway or not doing so blocks or limits the development of the rest of the airport subsystems.
4. We are facing the possible last airport expansion due to space limitations and acoustic and ecological impact on the environment.
5. Different proposals for the development of the Master Plan by the airport manager in 2017 and 2021 with clearly improvable aspects.

I will omit the first two as they are reasons with a high political component, which will require significant efforts and concessions between the parties to achieve the necessary consensus on a basic issue:What airport do we want?Open and connected to the world or a regional, Mediterranean airport.

Regarding the greatest technical difficulty, it should be borne in mind that the extension of the runway not only affects the surroundings of La Ricarda, but the solution adopted (extending it by a certain length or not doing so) is fundamental, key to the design of upstream airport subsystems (airspace design and its operational management) and downstream (flight field layout and ground taxiing operational procedures), which means that it is a priority to specify this action due to its implication in the rest of the actions.

It is worth knowing that, in the current design of the flight field, there are points that slow down the taxiing of aircraft on the ground that should be improved, which require different actions depending on the length of the sea-side runway and the runway configuration adopted, segregated as the current one or independent. The global consideration of these aspects is mandatory if the aim is to optimize the efficiency and performance of the global operation.

In the current design, there are points that slow down the taxiing of aircraft on the ground that should be improved, which require different actions depending on the length of the sea-side runway and the configuration of the runways, segregated or independent

In relation to the fourth point, simply indicate that, after the two extensions already mentioned, the possibilities for growth are limited given the airport's small surface area, 1,068 hectares, one of the smallest among major European airportsIf we add to this the urban environment and environmental pressure, there will be no other development possibilities in the future than the one proposed.

Finally, it should be noted that, in less than five years, the airport manager has presented two proposals for the Master Plan to increase the capacity of Barcelona Airport. In February 2018, the 2017-2026 MP was presented, with a new proposal, not previously contemplated, to develop an airport system between Barcelona and Girona airports with actions at both airports without any extension of the sea-side runway. The proposal was received with little media impact, technical-operational doubts about the effectiveness of the system, and being widely accepted by the ecological-environmental sector and close to the position of the Generalitat.

The latest proposal from 2021 focuses exclusively on Barcelona, incorporating the need to extend the sea-side runway, proposing environmental compensations that should obtain the approval of community authorities in Brussels, which generated the eruption of a broad airport debate in Catalan society highly attractive to "todólogos" or "ultracrepidarianos" for and against the proposal, which is cooling down due to the lack of consensus between the Govern itself and the central state administration.

At this point, the question is: Which of the two options is the most suitable? Possibly neither one nor the other, but both depending on the airport we want.

The option of the Catalan airport system between Barcelona and Girona is necessary but not sufficient to optimize the capacity of Barcelona airport. Necessary as an alternative for non-strategic companies without traffic contribution in the challenge of increasing long-haul routes, an objective shared by a broad sector of Catalan society. This model, widely extended in almost all major European capitals, requires specific commercial strategies that allow companies to consider flying to Girona more attractive than to Barcelona. It is not about the 3rd or 4th runway of any airport, an unfortunate concept that generates confusion. Thinking of flying to Girona to connect at Barcelona Airport means that the business is not understood, nor does it make sense to think of long-haul flights in Girona. Different is flying to this city to travel to Barcelona city or its surroundings, as happens with a high percentage of passengers who fly to Girona.

Which of the two options is the most suitable? Possibly neither one nor the other but both depending on the airport we want

The 2021 proposal directly impacts the airport's capacity bottleneck. The use of Girona airport as an airport system does not solve it, it simply delays it. The problems of congestion and low quality of service in 2018 and 2019 are due, among other reasons, to traffic management restrictions caused by the current operational configuration of segregated runways and airfield design.

Therefore, if we opt for a broad, future-oriented vision, connected to the world and not just with Europe, we must find balanced solutions between economic and environmental interests, making both proposals compatible. If we stick with the first, we do not solve the airport capacity bottleneck, and if we stick with the second, we do not optimize it. It will not be easy, but if we evaluate the possible alternatives from a technical point of view, with a long-term vision, it will be possible to bring positions closer to define a consensus scenario by the territory and with guarantees of overcoming the necessary European filter.

For this, we must clarify concepts, such as those of the 4th runway or hub, not always well explained, nor associate the development or model of Barcelona airport with that of Madrid, since they are different airports, nor of course impose urgency in decision-making. Barcelona and Catalonia need a great airport and recovering dialogue is essential to achieve this and avoid a prolonged period of saturation of a key infrastructure for the territory.