El Prat Airport sets a new passenger record after exceeding its maximum capacity.

BarcelonaBarcelona Airport continues to expand and has been surpassing its goals for some time now. After achieving its first the more than 55 million passengers last year, the infrastructure continues to grow this year and is aiming for a new record, challenging its theoretical limits of maximum capacity.

July is one of the busiest months at El Prat, only slightly below August, coinciding with the school holiday season in most source markets, such as France, Italy, Germany and the United States. In a summer that will be a record again In Barcelona, the main gateway to the city, this upward trend is strengthening. El Prat Airport registered a new passenger record in July, with more than 5.5 million passengers, the highest figure in the historical series, both in absolute terms and in July. This new milestone represents a growth of nearly 3% compared to the same period in 2024, when 5.4 million passengers were registered. Since the beginning of the year, the airport has handled 32.7 million passengers, 4% more than between January and July 2024, setting another record.

All of this has been accompanied by the airline supply, which offered 6.2 million seats in July, a 4.7% increase compared to the previous year. It has also been a month marked by increased international connectivity, with a total of 58 routes. Looking ahead to August, air capacity will be the same as in July, with 6.2 million seats, representing a year-over-year increase of 5.2%. In the month in which El Prat will carry more travelers, the increase in frequencies to China will be notable, with the addition of more flights to Shanghai by China Eastern and Air China.

All this growth is occurring at an increasingly crowded airport. Last year, its maximum capacity was already exceeded, but Aena, the airport operator, is finding ways to continue growing despite the lack of capacity to keep going. the expansion project, with an estimated investment of €3.2 billion. The solution consists of taking advantage of the remaining vacancies, especially the less-used time slots, but also of deseasonalizing the offer while awaiting the arrival of a key element: the construction of a new terminal that will make operations easier and avoid overloading the current facilities, especially the check-in counters and security controls.

By airlines

Air traffic at El Prat is led by airlines low cost, which occupy six of the top ten positions. For yet another month, Vueling was the leading airline in Barcelona, taking almost half of all passengers, 2.2 million. In second place was another classic, the Irish airline Ryanair, with just over 887,000 passengers, followed by the Hungarian airline Wizz Air, with 271,100, and the British airline EasyJet, with 201,300, all of them low-cost carriers.

It is not until fifth place that Iberia appears, with 197,500 passengers, given that Barajas airport is one of the main hubs with Latin America. Below is the German airline Lufthansa, with around 122,900 passengers; the Majorcan airline Air Europa, with 89,200; the German airline Eurowings (formerly Germanwings) and low cost Lufthansa–, with around 86,600 passengers, and Norwegian, also a low-cost airline, with 81,800 passengers. American Airlines closes the ranking with 73,200 passengers.

This is precisely one of the pending issues in the airport expansion project, which advocates lengthening the third runway to attract more intercontinental flights. A complicated milestone without a flag carrier based in the Catalan capital, with Iberia concentrated in Barajas. Only one week after the agreement to unblock the expansion was presented, the Spanish airline made it clear that his plans were focused on Madrid and left it in the hands of the low cost Level's growth in Barcelona. Headquartered in Viladecans, shared with Vueling, Level operates long-haul routes with seven aircraft bound for the United States, Argentina, and Chile, compared to Iberia's 527 routes—388 codeshare routes—mainly to Latin America, and a fleet of 163 aircraft.

Records amid strikes

A key date in August is the long weekend on the 15th, when the largest number of operations at El Prat airport is concentrated. The peak of operations will coincide this year with two ground strikes by more than a dozen airlines, representing 40% of all scheduled flights, according to union sources. The protests will begin on Friday with workers at the airport. handling Ryanair. UGT, one of the majority unions, does not expect any agreement to be reached that would allow the strike to be called off. Between 400 and 500 workers at El Prat Airport are called to protest what they consider an abuse of overtime and employee sanctions. The strikes will spread to all Ryanair bases in Spain, with the greatest impact expected at Barajas Airport, and are planned to last until the end of the year.

With Ryanair ground services operating at minimum service levels throughout the long weekend, queues at check-in counters and cancellations will increase starting Saturday, when the Menzies Group workforce will also go on strike. The company, with around 500 employees in Barcelona, provides services to more than ten airlines, including Emirates, British Airways, Avianca, Latam, American Airlines, EgyptAir, Turkish, Aer Lingus, Norwegian, Wizz Air, and Transavia. The strike at Menzies, called by the UGT (United Workers' Union), aims to criticize the company's repeated breaches of labor agreements and demand the €500,000 it owes employees, according to union spokesperson José Antonio Ramírez. The strike will last 24 hours at Barcelona airport, as well as at Palma, Málaga, Alicante, Gran Canaria, and Tenerife airports, affecting more than 1,600 workers across Spain.