History

Barcelona's first airfield, located at el Remolar, began operations in 1916. However, it did not have good expansion prospects, so a new airport at El Prat opened in 1918. The first plane was a Latécoère Salmson 300 which arrived from Toulouse with final destination, Casablanca. The airport was used as headquarters of the Aeroclub of Catalonia and the base for the Spanish Navy's Zeppelin fleet. Scheduled commercial service began in 1927 with an Iberia service to Madrid Cuatro Vientos Airport. This was Iberia's first route.

In 1948, a runway was built, today 07-25, in the same year the first overseas service was operated by Pan American World Airways to New York City, using a Lockheed Constellation. Between 1948 and 1952 a second runway was constructed (runway 16-34), perpendicular to the previous, also taxiways were constructed and a terminal to accommodate passengers. In 1963 the airport reached one million passengers a year. A new control tower was built in 1965 and the terminal was rebuilt in 1968 (currently the oldest wing of Terminal B).

On 3 August 1970, Pan American World Airways inaugurated regular service between Barcelona, Lisbon and New York, operated by a Boeing 747SP. On 4 November of the same year, Iberia began the "Air-shuttle" service between Barcelona and Madrid-Barajas. A few years later, in 1976, a terminal was built specifically for Iberia's air-shuttle service and a terminal exclusively for cargo, an annexed mail service and an aircraft ramp for air cargo. In 1977 the airport handled over 5 million passengers annually.

From the late seventies to the early nineties the airport was stalled in traffic and investments until the 1992 Summer Olympics held in Barcelona. El Prat underwent a major development consisting in the modernization and expansion of the existing terminal (terminal B) and the construction of the other two (A and C terminals) which included jetways for direct access to the aircraft. This reform was designed by architect Ricardo Bofill Levi. In 1996, a new control tower was inaugurated also designed by Ricardo Bofill Levi.

Due to the strong drop in air traffic after 1999 and the crisis in the aviation sector in 2001 many charter operations from Girona and Reus were diverted to El Prat, which helped the airport to endure the crisis.

El Prat today

Most of the traffic at Barcelona Airport is domestic and European, in which Spanair and Vueling have an operational base. However, the number of intercontinental connections is well below other European airports with their level of passenger traffic. The lack of intercontinental connections has been a constant cause of complaint and pressure by the authorities and Catalan groups in recent years, who want the airport to become a centre of world air traffic distribution and not just European.

In recent years the traffic of low-cost airlines has grown significantly, especially after the creation of operating bases by Vueling and Clickair at the airport. Vueling and Clickair merged in July 2009, now they operate under the name of Vueling. There are other low-cost airlines operating from the airport including easyJet and WizzAir.

The airport has 3 runways, two parallel, nominated 07L/25R and 07R/25L (the latter opened in 2004), and a cross runway 02/20. There are two terminals: T2, which is the sum of the previous Terminal A, B and C and the new T1 opened on 16/6/2009. The two terminals have a combined total of 268 check-in counters and 64 boarding gates. Operations at the airport are restricted exclusively to IFR (instrumental flights), except for sanitary VFR flights, emergency and government.

A plan for expansion (Plan Barcelona) includes a third terminal building (also designed by Ricardo Bofill) and control tower. An additional runway (07R/25L) has also been built. Once these developments are complete in 2009, the airport will be capable of handling 55 million passengers annually (compared to 33 million passengers in 2007). The airport is slated to expand in area from 8.45 to 15.33 square kilometres (3.26 to 5.92 sq mi) by 2009. A further expansion is planned to be finished by 2012, with a new satellite terminal which will raise the capacity to 70 million passengers annually.

The airport is the subject of a political discussion over the management and control between the Generalitat of Catalonia and the Spanish Government, which has involved AENA (airport manager) and various airlines, Iberia and Spanair mainly. Part of the controversy is about the benefits that the airport generates, which are used in maintenance and investments in other airports in the network of AENA and government investments in other economic areas.

 

 
Terminal 1

Tarmac at gate A30

The new terminal T1, designed by Ricardo Bofill was inaugurated on 17 June 2009. The new terminal T1 has an area of 544,066 m2, and an aircraft ramp of 600,000 m2.

Its facilities include:

• 168 check-in counters
• 50 jetways
• 15 baggage carousels (one of the new carousel is equivalent to 4 carousels in the old terminal) and
• 12,000 parking spaces, in addition to the 11,900 already in the terminal 2 (current Terminals A, B, C).

The forecast is that the airport will be able to handle 55 million passengers annually and will reach 90 operations an hour.

The extension of the airport with a total investment of €5.1 billion in the future will include a new satellite terminal and refurbishment of existing terminals. The civil engineering phase of the South Terminal has been made possible by a budget of €900 million.

 Terminals, airlines and destinations

Airlines	Destinations	Terminal
Adria Airways	Ljubljana [seasonal]	1
Aegean Airlines	Athens	1
Aer Lingus	Belfast-International [resumes 28 March], Cork, Dublin	2B
Aeroflot	Moscow-Sheremetyevo	1
Aerolíneas Argentinas	Buenos Aires-Ezeiza	1
Aeroméxico	Mexico City	1
Air Algérie	Algiers	1
Air Arabia Maroc	Casablanca	2A
AirBaltic	Riga	1
Air Berlin	Berlin-Tegel, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Palma de Mallorca	2B
Air Canada	Montréal-Trudeau [begins 5 June; seasonal], Toronto-Pearson [begins 4 June; seasonal][6]	1
Air Europa	Athens [begins 4 July], Fuerteventura [seasonal], Ibiza, Lanzarote, La Palma [seasonal], Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Madrid, Minorca, Palma de Mallorca, Tenerife-North, Tenerife-South, Tunis	1
Air France	Paris-Charles de Gaulle	1
Air France operated by Brit Air	Lyon, Paris-Orly	1
Air France operated by Régional	Ajaccio [begins 29 May], Bordeaux, Nantes	1
Air Mali	Bamako [begins 28 March]	2A
Air Transat	Montréal-Trudeau, Toronto-Pearson, Vancouver [seasonal]	2B
Alitalia	Milan-Linate, Rome-Fiumicino	1
American Airlines	New York-JFK	1
Ándalus Líneas Aéreas	Almería, Gibraltar [resumes 29 March], Nador, San Sebastián [begins 29 March]	2A
Arkia Israel Airlines	Tel Aviv	1
Atlas Blue	Marrakech, Tangier	1
Austrian Airlines	Vienna	1
Austrian operated by Tyrolean Airways	Vienna [seasonal]	1
Avianca	Bogotá	1
Blue Air	Bucharest- Băneasa	2B
Blue1	Helsinki	1
Bmibaby	Birmingham, East Midlands [begins 28 March], Manchester [all seasonal]	2B
British Airways	London-Heathrow	1
Brussels Airlines	Brussels	1
Bulgaria Air	Sofia [resumes 22 March]	2A
Cimber Sterling	Copenhagen	2B
City Airline	Gothenburg-Landvetter [begins 1 April]	1
Continental Airlines	Newark	1
Croatia Airlines	Zagreb [seasonal]	1
Czech Airlines	Prague	1
Delta Air Lines	Atlanta, New York-JFK	1
EasyJet	Belfast-International, Berlin-Schönefeld, Bristol, Doncaster/Sheffield [begins 19 April], Dortmund, Liverpool, London-Gatwick, London-Luton, London-Stansted, Lyon, Milan-Malpensa, Newcastle upon Tyne, Paris-Charles de Gaulle	2C
EasyJet Switzerland	Basel/Mulhouse, Geneva	2C
EgyptAir	Cairo, Luxor	1
El Al	Tel Aviv	1
Estonian Air	Tallinn [seasonal]	1
Finnair	Helsinki	1
Germanwings	Cologne/Bonn, Hanover [begins 29 April], Stuttgart	2A
Iberia	Madrid	1
Iberia operated by Air Nostrum	Albacete, Almería, Asturias, Badajoz, Bologna, Bourgos, Corfu [seasonal], León, Marseilles, Murcia, Nantes, Nice, Olbia [seasonal], Pamplona, Salamanca, San Sebastián, Santander, Tangier [seasonal], Toulouse [begins 28 March], Turin, Valencia, Valladolid	1
Icelandair	Reykjavik-Keflavik [resumes 26 June; seasonal]	2A
Iceland Express	Reykjavik-Keflavik [resumes 1 June; seasonal]	2A
Jet2.com	Leeds/Bradford	2A
Jet4You	Casablanca, Nador, Tangier	2A
KLM	Amsterdam	1
LOT Polish Airlines	Warsaw	1
Lufthansa	Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Milan-Malpensa, Munich	1
Lufthansa Regional operated by Contact Air	Stuttgart [begins 29 March]	1
Lufthansa Regional operated by Eurowings	Düsseldorf [ends 2 April], Stuttgart	1
Lufthansa Regional operated by Lufthansa CityLine	Düsseldorf, Munich [ends 27 March]	1
Luxair	Luxembourg	2B
Meridiana	Florence	2A
Monarch Airlines	Manchester	2B
Niki	Vienna [begins 26 March]	2A
Norwegian Air Shuttle	Bergen [begins 28 March] Copenhagen, Oslo-Gardermoen, Stockholm-Arlanda	2A
Pakistan International Airlines	Islamabad, Lahore	2A
Qatar Airways	Doha [begins 7 June]	2
Rossiya	St Petersburg [seasonal]	2B
Royal Air Maroc	Casablanca	1
Royal Jordanian	Amman	1
Scandinavian Airlines	Copenhagen, Oslo-Gardermoen, Stockholm-Arlanda [seasonal]	1
Singapore Airlines	Singapore1	1
Sky Work Airlines	Berne [begins 30 March]	2
Spanair	A Coruña, Algiers, Alicante, Asturias, Banjul, Belgrade [begins 30 March], Bilbao, Copenhagen, Fuerteventura, Granada, Ibiza, Jerez de la Frontera, Lanzarote, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Madrid, Málaga, Minorca, Munich, Palma de Mallorca, Santiago de Compostela, Seville, Stockholm-Arlanda, Tenerife-North, Tenerife-South, Valencia, Vigo	1
Sun d'Or International Airlines	Tel Aviv	1
Swiss International Air Lines	Geneva, Zürich	1
Swiss operated by Swiss European Air Lines	Basel/Mulhouse	1
TAP Portugal	Lisbon	1
TAP operated by Portugália	Lisbon, Porto	1
TAROM	Bucharest-Otopeni	1
Transaero Airlines	Moscow-Domodedovo	2A
Transavia.com	Amsterdam, Rotterdam [begins 6 April]	2A
Transavia.com Denmark	Copenhagen	2A
Travel Service Airlines operated by Smart Wings	Prague [resumes 2 April]	2A
Tunisair	Tunis	1
Turkish Airlines	Istanbul-Atatürk	1
Ukraine International Airlines	Kiev-Boryspil, Lviv [begins 17 June]	1
US Airways	Philadelphia [seasonal]	1
VIM Airlines	Moscow-Domodedovo	2A
Vueling Airlines	A Coruña, Alicante, Amsterdam, Asturias, Athens, Bilbao, Brussels, Bucharest-Otopeni [ends 23 June], Budapest [ends 22 June], Dubrovnik [resumes 28 March], Granada, Ibiza, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Jerez de la Frontera, Lisbon, Madrid, Málaga, Malta [resumes 30 March], Marrakech [ends 23 June], Milan-Malpensa, Minorca, Naples, Nice, Palermo, Paris-Orly, Pisa [ends 23 June], Prague [ends 23 June], Rome-Fiumicino, Santiago de Compostela, Seville, Tenerife-North, Venice-Marco Polo, Verona [resumes 29 March], Vienna [ends 23 June], Vigo	1
Wind Jet	Catania [seasonal]	2B
Wizz Air	Bucharest-Băneasa, Budapest, Cluj-Napoca, Gdánsk [begins 24 April], Katowice, Prague, Sofia, Timisoara, Warsaw [begins 29 March]	2A

¹: Singapore Airlines flights make a stop in Milan-Malpensa, but Singapore Airlines does not have the rights to carry passengers between Milan-Malpensa and Barcelona.

 

 Cargo airlines

Airlines	Destinations
British Airways World Cargo	East Midlands, London-Heathrow, London-Luton
Cargolux	Hong Kong, Jeddah, Luxembourg
DHL	Vitoria-Gasteiz
Emirates SkyCargo	Dubai, Mexico City
FedEx Express	Paris-Charles de Gaulle
Jade Cargo International	Brescia, Shanghai-Pudong, Shenzhen
Swiftair
TNT Airways	Liege, Brussels
United Parcel Service	Cologne/Bonn, Valencia

 

 Statistic

Passenger Volume Year Passengers % Year Passengers % 1963 1,000,000 - 1999 17,421,938 +7.6 1977 5,000,000 - 2000 19,809,567 +13.8 1990 9,205,000 - 2001 20,745,536 +4.7 1991 9,145,000 -0.7 2002 21,348,211 +2.9 1992 10,196,000 +11.5 2003 22,752,667 +6.6 1993 9,999,000 -2.0 2004 24,558,138 +7.9 1994 10,647,285 +6.5 2005 27,152,745 +10.6 1995 11,727,814 +10.1 2006 30,008,152 +10.5 1996 13,434,679 +14.6 2007 32,898,249 +9.6 1997 15,065,724 +12.1 2008 30,208,134 -8.2 1998 16,194,805 +7.3 2009 Font: Aeroport de Barcelona, AENA.

Operations Volume Year Operations % 1999 233,609 - 2000 255,913 +9.5 2001 273,119 +6.3 2002 271,023 -0.8 2003 282,021 +4.1 2004 291,369 +3.3 2005 307,798 +5.6 2006 327,636 +6.4 2007 352,501 +7.6 2008 321,491 -8.8 2009

Cargo Volume Year Tonnes % 1999 88,217 - 2000 88,269 +2.4 2001 81,882 -7.8 2002 75,905 -7.3 2003 70,118 -7.6 2004 84,985 +21.2 2005 90,446 +6.4 2006 93,404 +3.3 2007 96,770 +3.6 2008 104,329 +7.7 2009

 Ground transportation

 

 Rail

Terminal 2 has its own RENFE commuter train station on the line Nord , which runs from the Maçanet-Massanes station, with major stops at Barcelona Sants railway station and the fairly central Passeig de Gràcia railway station to provide transfer to the Barcelona Metro system. Passengers for T1 must take a connecting bus from the train station to T1. As part of the major expansion above, a new railway station will be built nearby, connecting the airport to the Spanish AVE network, and Line 9 of the Barcelona Metro.

 

  Bus

The Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) public bus on line 46 runs every 16 minutes from Plaça Espanya. A scheduled private bus line (Aerobús) from Plaça Catalunya, stops at Urgell and Plaça d'Espanya. Taxi stops are available at each terminal. The C-32B highway connects the airport to a main traffic interchange between Barcelona's Ronda de Dalt beltway and major motorways.

 

 Airport parking

Barcelona Airport has approximately 24,000 parking spaces (12,000 at T1 & 12,000 at T2), 2,009 of them are in the parking building, placed in front of Terminal 2C, which it is connected to the airport by a covered corridor. In front of Terminal 2A, another parking building, which adds approximately 2,600 more spaces, this building is being extended with the construction of two new levels. The remainder are distributed in other areas on the exterior, in front of the terminal buildings and offices buildings. Since 16/6/2009, there is also a long stay parking between Terminal 1 and Terminal 2.

 

AENA

If you need informacion about flights or general informacion, please, contact with this telephone number

Customer assistance: 902 404 704.

Email:  bcninfofi@aena.es

Complaints

Email:    servicios-aeroportuarios@aena.es

AENA international

C/ Arturo Soria 109, 2ª planta. 28043 Madrid
Telephone: +34 913 212 950.
Fax: +34 913 212 955.
e-mail: aenainternacional@aena.es

 

 

Barcelona Airport

For claims about lost luggage ask what to do at Lost and Found offices that companies like Fligthcare, Groundforce, Swissport, Newco, Iberia, Vueling and Air France have in terminals.

Lost & Found phone number : 93 298 33 49

Email: bcninfofi@aena.es

 

To ask about dangerous luggage, like firearms, you can ask the police Guardia Civil (spanish police):

Weapons control department: 93 297 11 88