Madrid Barajas: investing to grow
Aena invests 6.2 billion Euro into the development of Madrid airport. The Spanish airport has been registering a significant surge in passenger traffic since 2000. Four Terminals and four runways, in addition to approximately 46 million passengers who travelled through the airport in 2006, are some of the most outstanding figures that describe the activity of Madrid-Barajas airport, both a Spanish air transport hub and an example of well planned infrastructure development.

Madrid airport is located only 12 km away from the city centre. Over the past six years the airport has registered a surge in passenger traffic of 13 million travellers, so far a record figure in Europe, resulting from the implementation of specific infrastructure and strategic objectives. At the same time, this is part of a coordinated development project that extends to all the Spanish airports.

Aena (Aeropuertos Españoles y Navegación Aerea) manages Madrid airport. The company largely focuses on the development of airport infrastructures and passenger services, with a view to improve airport usability.  The investment programme has in fact been extended to include additional infrastructure projects, such as the construction of runway four, the upgrade of the baggage handling system and the people mover system, both of which took 1.2 billion Euro to complete, and a number of capex in the field of Information Technology that are aimed at improving the productivity of all the subjects involved in airport-related activities: airlines, handlers and other operators.

To that end, Aena has developed the “Airport Management Centre”: a “smart room” equipped with 100 workstations designed to make different systems interact, like handling or maintenance systems, so as to create a common language.

The airport is growing incessantly and it is expected to reach a capacity of 70 million passengers a year. A satellite airport will have to be built once that capacity has been exceeded.