Catalan airports will receive €3 billion, 23% of the investment announced by Aena across the country.

MadridAena, the state airport operator, plans an unprecedented investment of €12.88 billion between 2027 and 2031 for the Spanish airport network, of which €9.991 billion corresponds to regulated investment, as announced by the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, this Thursday. The company then notified the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV). The nearly €13 billion represents a surge in investment over the past five years: for example, between 2022 and 2026, regulated investment alone will have amounted to €2.5 billion.

Of the total investment announced, "around 3 billion euros" (approximately 23%) will go to all Catalan airports, according to the President of the Government, Salvador Illa, during the inauguration of a Hipra pharmaceutical plant in Aiguaviva (Girona). "This investment represents a comprehensive improvement of the Catalan airport network: El Prat Airport, Girona-Costa Brava Airport, Reus Airport, and Sabadell Airport," he stated.

The figure announced by Isla, however, will be confirmed later, when the Spanish government approves the so-called Airport Regulation Document for the period 2027-2031 (DORA III), which will include the regulated portion of the investment announced this Wednesday. In addition to the investment, Aena includes in this plan the actions it plans to carry out at the state's airports for a period of five years. DORA II, which covers the period 2022-2026, is currently in force.

Part of the investment is to expand El Prat Airport.

One of the key items to be included in DORA III nothing that will be allocated to the expansion of El Prat airport (around €3.2 billion is planned for this project alone). However, this money will be deployed beyond the 2027-2031 five-year period and will also include DORA IV (2032-2036), as confirmed by Aena sources to ARA.

At the moment, the exact amount that DORA III will include for the expansion of the Catalan infrastructure is unknown. However, considering that the new master plan for El Prat Airport will not be ready until 2028 and the works will extend until 2033, according to the planned schedule, a significant portion of the disbursement will already be made in DORA IV.

The airport manager planned to include the expansion of El Prat in DORA II, but the derailment of the project due to political disagreement made this impossible. The Ministry of Transport has repeatedly stated that a five-year plan like DORA "aims to provide certainty," and any possible modification ahead of schedule must be well-founded.

The other Catalan airports

Wednesday's announcement is only the first step toward drafting the final DORA III, which the Council of Ministers is expected to approve in the second half of 2026, once all the formalities are completed. Therefore, it will not be published until then.

The document must include investments broken down by airport (in Spain, Aena manages 46 airports and 2 heliports); the technical details of all the planned actions (from improvement works to expansions), but also the fees that airlines will have to pay, among other issues. However, all of this will now begin to be negotiated with the various stakeholders involved, starting with the airlines.

In any case, some details are known about the planned actions at Catalan airports. Regarding El Prat Airport, beyond the expansion project, the aim is to reach an airfield capacity of 90 operations per hour, adapt the capacity of the so-called Landside, and transform the infrastructure into a "sustainability benchmark." Furthermore, the plan is to reconfigure terminals T1 and T2.

At Girona Airport, the boarding area, the Airside, and the non-Schengen arrivals area are planned. However, the most notable action is the one that will allow for rail connections with the AVE (High Speed Train) system to improve communication and continue attracting passengers. Finally, in the case of Reus, areas such as passenger control are planned, and at Sabadell Airport, improvements are planned to access the airport and also expand the apron.

Handle more passengers

"The investment will allow us to continue modernizing and expanding not only Spain's main airports, but also all those that need to adapt to growing demand," Sánchez argued. This year, all Spanish airports are expected to reach a record 320 million passengers. Sánchez also focused on the new environmental and safety requirements required for the infrastructure.

"This investment must serve to adapt to future airport demand in accordance with technical criteria and with the utmost respect for the environment," argued Aena President Mauricio Lucena, who asserted that "capacity is starting to get tight," referring to the growth in passengers. One of the controversies surrounding the expansion of El Prat Airport has been, precisely, the environmental impact of the Ricarda lagoon. The project that was ultimately put on the table plans to compensate for the affected area with new wetlands, although critics remain unconvinced.

The president of the airport operator took the opportunity to argue that the announced investment "does not respond to criteria of political expediency" (it should be noted that Lucena joined Aena through Pedro Sánchez, since the State is the main shareholder, and during his term the expansion of El Prat Airport was unblocked). "The investment is based on technical estimates of traffic demand. The largest airports and tourist destinations in the country need this wave of investment," Lucena argued. El Prat Airport alone closed 2024 with the highest passenger figure in its history and surpassed 55 million travelers for the first time.

What will happen to fares?

One of the most thorny issues in the DORA is Aena's pricing model, which has led to a back-and-forth discussion between the airport operator and companies like Ryanair on more than one occasion. It must be taken into account that the fares paid by airlines are a significant portion of the revenue that later allows for improvements to the state's airports. "Aena's pricing model is designed to facilitate the necessary investments to meet future demand and guarantee safety, quality, and sustainability. The goal is for this investment cycle to be compatible with maintaining more competitive fares in Europe," the airport operator maintains.