One year at the latest. This is the limit that the central government and the Generalitat have set to agree on a solution for the Barcelona airport. The objective is shared: to increase and improve intercontinental connections, with greater added value. The way to achieve it is not, and it is this point that the technical commission that started this Thursday will address. The commitment involves offering proposals at the end of the year and validating one of them politically. This is what would be applied to make the long-awaited increase in long-haul flights possible. If a consensus is indeed achieved.
In the first meeting of the table on the airport, held in Barcelona, ??the Secretary General of Air and Maritime Transport, Benito Núñez, will participate on behalf of the Ministry of Transport; the general director of Civil Aviation, David Benito, and the technician of the General Directorate of Civil Aviation, Andrés López. The Secretary of Mobility and Infrastructure, Marc Sanglas, attended for the Generalitat; the president and CEO of Aeroports de Catalunya, Daniel Albalate, and the director general of Interdepartmental Coordination, Marc Ramentol.
In it they agreed to create joint commissions between the central and Catalan governments, whose number and members have yet to be determined. The Generalitat wants governance (having decision-making power over the management of the airport), infrastructure (whether the extension of the third runway is necessary and possible alternatives) and the rail connections of the Reus and Girona airports with Barcelona to be analyzed, Sanglas advanced. . However, the scope of the commissions has yet to be decided between the two administrations.
Government sources point out regarding the claim to address the governance of El Prat that there are already instruments of participation of the Generalitat, such as the Air Route Development Committee or the Airport Coordination Committee. This space is co-chaired by the Department of Territory and also has town councils and economic and social agents. They also remember that El Prat is an airport of general interest and its management corresponds to Aena. The limits of authority of each administration for infrastructures of this type are set by law. Regarding high speed at the Reus and Girona airports, they are advancing independently of the negotiation on the airport, with work already advanced.
The political calendar and the very dynamics of air activity are pressing. The Catalan elections will be held in February 2025 at the latest, so it is urgent to agree on a solution before exhausting the legislature. Added to this is the increase in passengers at Barcelona airport, which is already approaching the limit of its capacity, set at 55 million travelers. The interest of airlines in opening long-haul routes with the Catalan capital is also boiling. El Prat has already reached the pre-pandemic number of intercontinental connections this winter and for the summer an increase is expected that may peak given the current conditions, its director, Eva Valenzuela, recently warned. The possible expansion should also arrive in time to be included in the next airport planning document (DORA III), planned for the period 2027-2031 and which must be approved at the end of 2026.
In this way, an attempt is made to respond to a debate that has been going on for three years and that has generated confrontation at various levels: internally between ERC and JxCat, between the Generalitat and the central Government and between municipalities and environmentalists. The business world has defended the need to expand the airport, with the Foment employers’ association at the forefront. Last year, the entity presented the conclusions on El Prat, with ten proposals to increase capacity, which included lengthening the third runway with an elevated platform over the La Ricarda lagoon.
The central government, for its part, maintains the initial expansion proposal, with a planned investment of 1.7 billion euros. The Generalitat, on the other hand, has yet to define its alternative, although it has repeatedly advocated distributing flights between the airports of Barcelona, ??Reus and Girona to decongest El Prat. In this sense, Sanglas pointed out yesterday: “we want more international flights” but the infrastructure must respect “the environment and the acoustic rights of the neighbors.”
