Aena advances in the airport city around Madrid-Barajas while it encounters different brakes in Barcelona-El Prat. This is the conclusion that the airport manager exposes in the update of the strategic plan that covers until 2026 and that was announced today by the listed company chaired by Maurici Lucena. The exponential increase in air traffic and the multiplication of commercial income have led the company’s leadership to revise upwards its business objectives for the coming years.
Aena confirms, therefore, that the real estate developments at the Madrid and Barcelona airports are advancing at a very different pace. In Barajas, after the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, confirmed last January the expansion of the facilities for 2,400 million to promote the connection with Latin America and Asia, the company has specified today that in 2026 119 hectares will already be awarded for real estate activities, which will comprise 25% of the surface area associated with the airport city.
Specifically, in Barajas, the company 51% owned by the State has currently formalized the project of a 22,000 square meter hangar; a new office, hotel and commercial area with a supermarket; and a new loading ramp. At the capital’s airport, a new ramp next to the future T123, the extension of T4 to the south and new hangars are also in the process of being launched. The company also has a large logistics area of ??32 hectares and a hotel next to the T123 in the process of being studied in Madrid.
In El Prat the situation of real estate developments is very different. “The development of the airport city of Barcelona is linked to the airport expansion project,” assumes Aena in updating its strategic plan. Without a larger airport, Barcelona will also be left without ambitious real estate development, adds the manager. Furthermore, Aena explains that “urban planning procedures are slowing down some developments that in some cases prevent us from entering the market.”
At this moment, in El Prat, there are only three future urban projects: a 3-hectare logistics area is underway and the first airport hotel, which will be located in T2, and the first logistics center are in the study phase. , which will be 5 hectares, and not the initial 32 hectares due to the aforementioned problems with administrative licenses. Real estate activity generated income of 106 million for Aena in 2023, 34% more than in 2019.
While Madrid airport is being expanded, Barcelona airport remains paralyzed. Aena has been working on the project for some time to make terminal 4, terminal 4-S and terminals 1, 2 and 3 (unified) larger, with a new passenger and baggage processor. The first works have even already begun. The expansion of Madrid airport will be advanced before 2026 and will be completed before 2031 with the objective of being able to accommodate up to 90 million passengers.
At Barcelona airport, given the lack of political agreement for its expansion, the manager’s decision is to undertake specific works, not expansion, in terminal 1 “to adapt it to the new security filters and improve the customer experience” in the check-in area. Specifically, Aena will build new roads, move the departure and arrival board, expand the central deck and cover part of the terminal’s side patios. The president of Aena, Maurici Lucena, explained today that the new security machines (which will allow you to pass hand luggage controls without separating liquids and computer devices) are larger and heavier and that, therefore, the company has decided to set back the façade of the terminal to make it larger. It will not be gained in capacity, only in space, he has clarified.
Lucena described today that not expanding the Barcelona airport is a “very serious mistake.” In this criticism he has added the adverb “very”, since in November 2022 he had assured that it was “a mistake.” The veto to make the El Prat facilities larger “will very negatively affect the competitiveness of the Catalan and, therefore, Spanish economy,” he assured. “And this will be seen when the expansion of Adrid airport involves reaching 90 million passengers.”
The chief executive of the listed company has commented that the problems he sees in Catalonia are not seen in other autonomous communities. “I see this with the double pain of being president of Aena and as a Catalan,” he added.
Lucena has stated that the veto to make El Prat bigger represents “a brake on the economy of Catalonia and its citizens.” “The ball is still in the Government’s court,” she recalled. Asked about a transfer of management of the Barcelona airport to the Generalitat, the president of Aena explained that with the public-private ownership structure of the company he sees it as “extraordinarily difficult.”
Regarding passenger traffic, Aena has brought forward the goal of 300 million annual passengers in Spain to 2025, one year ahead of what was planned in the strategic plan, compared to the 294 million with which it expects to close in 2024. Spanish airports closed last year with 283 million travelers, surpassing the 2019 record of 275 million. “In 2023 we have confirmed that the pandemic and its toxic shock wave are behind us; “Travel and tourism are at the center of citizens’ priorities,” the company points out. In 2026, the manager plans to reach an approximate figure of 310 million in Spain and manage, together with the rest of the airports it operates in the world (London-Luton and several in Brazil), more than one million passengers a day.
Aena advances that the rebound in air traffic, more pronounced in tourist airports (since in Madrid and Barcelona pre-pandemic traffic has not yet recovered, “will make more investments in infrastructure necessary, with the aim of synchronizing capacity with demand planned and, also, to adapt the airports to the new security requirements and maintain the quality of the service.”
“Commercial and real estate activity in Spain, 2023 has been excellent, not only in terms of income, but also in terms of competition results, which outline significant growth in future income,” Maurici Lucena stated today. Commercial income could grow by 48% in 2026 compared to 2019 (in the original strategic plan it was estimated that it would grow by 23%) and commercial income per passenger by 32% (compared to 12%). In recent months the manager has closed the tenders for duty-free shops, restaurants and handling services. The company forecasts commercial revenue of 1.95 billion in 2026.
Aena earned 1,630 million and raised the dividend to 1,149 million. The State, as the owner of more than half of the company, received 586 million.
