The awaited Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2022 is imminent: it will officially kick off this Monday, the 28th, although this very weekend there are already events related to the event. Thus, after a 2020 without MWC and a 2021 with an atypical fair, both due to the attendance it registered and the change of dates, this year's event is back on track for one of the most anticipated and significant weeks in the city.
After two years at a standstill, the airport will once again be the main entry and exit point for congress attendees in the city and at El Prat 6,145 commercial movements are expected during this period, scheduled takeoffs and landings that, translated into offered seats, total 1,140,966 air seats.
Aena, the facility manager, considers the period from Friday, February 25, to Sunday, March 6, as a special period related to the MWC, considering as a peak not only the exact days of the congress, but all the activities that revolve around it: from extraordinary presentations to leisure time for congress attendees and companions who will take advantage of their trip to the capital of Catalonia to resume trips they have not been able to make for many months.
Recovering figures
The 6,415 scheduled commercial movements represent a recovery of 78% of the 8,226 flights scheduled for the 2019 edition, the last one held under normal conditions. Most of the operations are from companies using Terminal T1, with 4,046, while 2,369 flights will arrive and depart through T2.
For its part, the number of seats offered for these days amounts to 1,140,966, a figure that represents 74.4% of the seats that were commercialized to and from Barcelona during the last edition before the pandemic. These were exactly 1,532,522, according to Aena's statistics department. For 2022, the seats will be distributed between 756,289 in Terminal T1 and 384,677 in Terminal T2.
Larger planes and returns
One of the pieces of evidence of the weight that Mobile has in air mobility is the change in the type of aircraft that airlines flying regularly to Barcelona will use. During this week, several operate with higher capacity aircraft or land at El Prat with the largest model in their fleet. To this must be added that in some cases, connections that the pandemic had caused to fall in March 2020 are being recovered.
One of these cases is the direct Seoul-Barcelona flight. Asiana Airlines returned to El Prat on Friday with an Airbus A350-900 from Incheon, the South Korean capital's airport. For its part, El Al, the Israeli airline, also plans to offer a greater number of seats during the congress. Since the recovery of flights between Barcelona and Tel Aviv, this company had only used a single type of aircraft: the Boeing 737, single-aisle and with capacity for 166 travelers. These days, the logo of this company, with the characteristic Star of David, will be seen in Barcelona painted on the fuselage of Boeing 787-9 type aircraft, with 282 seats.
The technology congress is also serving to recover connections that the pandemic had caused to fall in March 2020Egyptair, Egypt's state-owned airline, also has a scheduled capacity increase this week, during which several of its flights operated by 144-seat Boeing 737 aircraft will be operated by Airbus A330 aircraft configured for 268 passengers.Qatar Airwayswill be another of the carriers that will respond to the greater demand to and from Barcelona by scheduling larger aircraft such as the Boeing 777-300 and the Airbus A350-1000, which with 412 and 327 seats are the largest capacity in its fleet with the exception of its ten A380s, of which it currently has only four operational on very specific routes.
From the United States, Delta and United, two already habitual operators, are also changing their aircraft model for other intercontinental range and higher capacity aircraft, a strategic move they plan to consolidate for the summer season. This is also a commercial action by other companies that have forecasts of a return to near normality in the second half of this 2022.
More private flights
The airport manager and the concessionary operators of El Prat's corporate terminal, the proportionally least affected part of the airport in the last two years due to the sustained private flights, have done their sums and contemplate the operation of 147 executive jet takeoffs and landings coinciding with the Mobile. On Friday, 25 flights were already carried out, and during this weekend, 48 takeoffs and landings of VIP or corporate aircraft are scheduled, figures that are often minimums, since one of the keys to this sector is flexibility and more operations than expected are always carried out due to the profile of private aviation clients: a traveler who flies on demand and often uses the jet at the last minute.
Joy, then, for runways and air terminals that eagerly awaited the impact of the MWC. Although the figures are still far off and perhaps the war in Ukraine may affect some flights, the overall count shows that the course of aviation in Barcelona is straightening out.
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