The Barcelona Airport closes 2024 with a record of 55 million passengers

New annual historical record for Barcelona Airport. As we already anticipated, 2024 has become the best year for the airport, through which more than 55 million travelers passed last year. Specifically, 55.03 million passengers traveled through the Barcelona infrastructure, which is close to its maximum capacity with these figures.

Of the total of these 55 million travelers, 54.9 million corresponded to commercial passengers, 10.3% more than the previous year. Of these, 40.7 million traveled on international flights ---12.5% more---, and 14.2 million did so on domestic flights ---4.2% more---.

In addition, the number of passengers between Barcelona airport and Asia and North America registered new records. Connections with Asia reached 2.34 million last year, 25.9% more than in 2023, and surpassed the 2019 maximum of 2.24 million. On the other hand, traveler traffic with North America stood at 2.6 million in 2024, 24.8% more than the previous year, and above the 2.1 million of the last year prior to the pandemic. In Europe, Italy is the leading country in air traffic, behind domestic flights.

The airport, which closed the year with a record number of monthly passengers in December ---with more than four million---, managed almost 348,000 operations last year, representing an increase of 9% compared to 2023. The infrastructure also saw freight transport grow last year: more than 181,600 tons were transported, 16% more than in 2023.

With these figures, the airport is close to its maximum capacity. For this reason, its growth will be determined by the use of the time slots of the day known as off-peak hours that are still available, as well as by the annual deseasonalization of activity. This will be the case until a decision is made on its eventual expansion, something a technical commission made up of representatives of the Department of Territory, the Ministry of Transport and Aena, together with experts, is working on.

While this expansion is being studied, Aena has launched various initiatives to optimize its capacity, such as an investment program that includes actions worth more than 750 million euros in the two terminals of the Barcelona airport.