Collboni experts are advocating for expanding the airport "preferably" without touching Ricarda.

BarcelonaBarcelona now has the report it intends to use to address the debate on airport expansion. Mayor Jaume Collboni's Infrastructure Advisory Committee published an eight-point opinion this Wednesday advocating for its expansion. The experts themselves consider this expansion "urgent and necessary" and advocate for it to allow "the short runway to be lengthened, preferably without affecting the protected areas of Ricarda and Remolar."

However, the study provides no further details in this regard nor does it assess other options that had been considered. "We did not want to conduct a technical analysis of the different options. That was not the mandate," emphasized City Council Chief Engineer Oriol Altisench. However, he emphasized that City Council advisors have "preferred" the possibility of having "a sufficiently long runway to allow large aircraft without impacting Gavà and Castelldefels and without touching wetlands."

During the presentation of the report—which the mayor endorsed, as explained by First Deputy Mayor Laia Bonet—both Altisench and the president of the Advisory Committee, former minister Santi Vila, pointed out the possibility that this extension of the short runway might not have to be 500 meters, as had been proposed. Both spoke of seeking "minimum solutions" that would allow the airport's capacity to be expanded and achieve the goal of carrying out 90 operations per hour.

Approval for the satellite terminal

Given the difficulties surrounding the debate over the airport and anticipating that the expansion could take years, the experts also call in their opinion for immediate action on those aspects that could serve to improve the airport's operational capacity. Along these lines, they advocate improving the level of service and capacity of Terminal 2 and its direct connection to Terminal 1, "favoring the development of the airport city."

Furthermore, the advisors call for addressing the construction of the new satellite terminal and putting the El Prat high-speed train station into operation to connect the airport with the rest of the country. With this, they believe the facility could achieve "in the short term" greater capacity for long-haul flights with only "operational" measures that "basically" involve Aena, Enaire, and the municipalities near the airport. These measures, according to Altisench, could allow the airport to increase from the current 78 operations per hour to just over 80 without having to wait for the expansion.

In short, the experts call for as much progress as possible before the debate is resolved. Along these lines, they also emphasize the need to implement the environmental offsets still pending since the last enlargement and begin addressing any new offsets that may be necessary in the future.

The debate on governance

Among the eight points in the committee's opinion, there is also room to discuss the airport's governance. Experts point out that the expansion should also be accompanied by an agreement on the management of El Prat Airport, which they now consider "too centralized and insensitive to the interests of the region." They also argue that "local institutions should play an important role."

This is the first opinion of the Barcelona City Council's Infrastructure Advisory Committee. Chaired by former Minister Santi Vila, the body brings together around twenty experts in various fields. Among its members are renowned figures such as former Minister Andreu Mas-Colell; former president of Agbar and CEO of Criteria, Àngel Simón; aeronautical engineer Beth Cahué; director of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Mateo Valero; and former president of the Port of Barcelona, ​​Joaquim Coello.

The first deputy mayor, Laia Bonet, explained that the report should serve to put forward a vision for the airport "with a technical and rigorous basis." This will be the document with which the City Council will participate in the debates that will open around the infrastructure, and with this in mind, Collboni plans to present it soon to both the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, and the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez.

From the opposition, the initial reaction to the report has been somewhat disappointed. Junts councilor Damià Calvet lamented that "very generic proposals" are being made and questioned the feasibility of extending the short runway without affecting Ricarda and Remolar. ERC also laments the lack of a concrete proposal. The leader of Barcelona en Común, Janet Sanz, was more critical, calling it "disrespectful" to prioritize the debate on expanding the airport over improving the commuter trains. The only group that openly welcomed the ruling was the People's Party (PP): its leader, Daniel Sirera, called for an urgent expansion of the airport and blamed the Socialists if this isn't done, given that they currently govern in Barcelona, ​​the Generalitat (Catalan government), and the Spanish state.

A closed file, nine months in a drawer

The debate has resumed in recent weeks after many months of hiatus. As the ARA advanced, the Collboni government had locked the draft prepared by the experts in a drawer in the office of the chief engineer, Oriol Altisench, since June. The debate resumed after the February plenary session approved a proposal from the PP, which called on the City Council to "lead and commit to carrying out the necessary actions to promote the airport expansion."

That day, the municipal government also pledged to immediately convene the plenary session of the Infrastructure Advisory Committee to finally discuss the draft and issue the opinion that has been made public. Once the airport file is closed, the City Council has assigned new duties to the Advisory Committee. As Bonet explained, the next task will be to prepare a proposal on what the public transport interchange nodes in Barcelona should be, both for rail and intercity buses.