The expansion project of Barcelona-El Prat airport is progressing backed by Aena and the special protection granted by the Government of Salvador Illa, who has always defended it as “an essential infrastructure for Catalonia, Spain, and Europe,” despite the concerns the expansion generates among its two main partners: ERC and Comunes. While politically the difference in criteria has so far avoided conflict ― both Esquerra and Comunes have just helped the PSC approve the Catalan Budgets ― neighborhood entities and environmental groups opposed to the expansion are activating signs of opposition and calling a series of rejection events and a large citizen mobilization for September 20. The goal is to block the development of a project that has “all kinds of impacts” and that, according to their complaints, is being processed “in secret” so as not to add fuel to the fire in a Catalan society very tense due to problems like “Rodalies, education, health, or housing.”
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The entities opposed to enlarging the size and capacity of the infrastructure are united under the umbrella of the Zeroport platform and denounce that “the governments of the Generalitat and the State continue obsessively betting on the expansion of El Prat airport, despite the very clear environmental obstacles that exist to carry it out.” They maintain that the airport operator Aena is already tendering for more than five million euros “the drafting of the airport master plan that will include the planned expansion and, with the approval of both governments, plans to allocate at least 3.2 billion euros to the expansion, more than 1 billion of which will already be invested in the 2027-2031 five-year period to expand T1, renovate T2, and refurbish the sea runway.” They consider that all this will increase the current capacity of the airport.
This Thursday it was announced that a protest campaign will start with a series of events in the coming weeks and will culminate in a large mobilization on September 20. “The moment is strategically key, as it will be a pre-election period, it will be five years since the large gathering in Barcelona against the same project, and the Government will have already approved or will be about to approve the Airport Regulation Document (DORA) 2027-2031.”
El Prat airport closed 2025 with a new attendance record, with 57.5 million users, beyond its theoretical capacity limit, set at 55 million people.
The expansion of the Barcelona airport is a matter that generates strong controversy due to its environmental impact on protected areas of the Llobregat Delta, which have the European Natura 2000 Network seal.
The planned actions include the reconfiguration of terminals T1 and T2 and the construction of a new satellite terminal. The most controversial aspect of the project is the extension of the sea runway towards the Ricarda lagoon. It currently measures 2.6 kilometers and does not provide sufficient guarantees for the takeoff of wide-body aircraft, that is, those with a wide fuselage. The redesign aims to leave it at 3,160 meters in length, in an intervention that adds, in total and counting the runoffs, 600 new meters of asphalt, as well as a safety strip, at the ends of Ricarda and Remolar, which is left marked but unpaved.
