Are the economic benefits of expanding the airport that great?

The main criterion for deciding whether to expand Barcelona Airport should be environmental. In a world where curbing climate change is absolutely necessary and cannot be postponed, expanding the airport's capacity takes us further away from the goal of reducing emissions. Furthermore, expansion would further damage an important natural heritage protected by the Birds and Habitats Directives.

Those who defend the airport's expansion argue that the economic benefits of the expansion are so great that Catalan society cannot afford to forgo it. A study, commissioned by Aena and conducted by professors from the University of Barcelona and economists from the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, estimates that the expansion (which would increase capacity from 55 to 72 million passengers annually) would increase Catalan GDP by approximately 15 billion euros and generate approximately 95,000 additional jobs.

These impacts are very significant and suggest that expanding the airport will improve the living conditions of Catalans. Without going into the methodological details and assumptions behind these estimates, there are several factors to consider that call into question the true magnitude of these economic benefits.

Increasing the airport's capacity from 55 to 72 million passengers means a significant increase in tourism and, consequently, employment in low-value-added sectors. Therefore, a significant portion of the GDP increase generated by the expansion would be realized in low-value-added employment (extensive economic growth) and would not generate significant wage increases.

The creation of 95,000 jobs, even if they were exclusively in low-value-added sectors, would seem a sufficiently significant economic benefit. However, it must be taken into account that generating 95,000 jobs is not equivalent to reducing unemployment in Catalonia by 95,000 people, given that the expansion would have an impact on the size of the resident population. It must be taken into account that market dynamics have generated significant growth in the metropolitan population in recent decades. In the urban area of ​​Barcelona, ​​the population has grown by more than one million people between 2001 and 2024, representing a growth of 22%. In this context, it is questionable whether, through public policies, metropolitan growth should be strengthened to the detriment of alternative models with greater inter-territorial balance.

The growth in tourism, the economy, and the population that would result from the airport expansion would also entail non-environmental economic costs. First, there is the congestion of the main tourist attractions, which worsens the tourist experience and drives out residents. Second, there is the effect on housing costs, where two effects must be considered. On the one hand, tourist rentals reduce the supply of rental housing and increase its price. On the other hand, population growth generates increases in housing prices due to the shortage of available land for more housing. Extensive economic growth also makes us more vulnerable in future droughts and entails the risk of congestion in public services such as healthcare and public transportation, where we have structural problems increasing their operating capacity.

A second benefit cited by those advocating for expansion is that it is necessary for the airport to operate more intercontinental routes and for Barcelona to consolidate its position as a leading global city. In this regard, it should be noted that we currently have 54 intercontinental routes between Barcelona and cities in the Americas, Asia, and major airports. hubs from the Middle East. Given the relatively small proportion of intercontinental routes within the airport's operations, it should be possible to open intercontinental routes considered strategic without the need to expand the airport.

Ultimately, the airport expansion would increase GDP and employment in Barcelona and Catalonia. However, the real economic benefits of this growth are smaller than they appear and cannot offset the environmental damage that the expansion would cause in terms of emissions and destruction of natural heritage.