If you visit the airports of Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga or Palma de Mallorca (among many others) these days, you are likely to encounter a flood of travelers pulling suitcases and with more or less happy faces, depending on whether they are going or returning from vacation. Normal in July. The problem is that: that this image is increasingly ‘normal’, more common. So much so that last year Aena reached a passenger record in 23 terminals. In fact, El Prat already has surpassed its ceiling and Barajas is about to do so: in 2025 it moved about 68.2 million of passengers, very close to the limit of 70 million that Transport assigned in 2023.
Given such a panorama and the “limitations” that El Prat and Barajas are already suffering, Aena has had no choice but to rethink its way of managing the grid.
Objective: avoid collapse. The news has advanced it The Country: faced with the avalanche of travelers in its airport network, especially pronounced in certain terminals, during certain months and at certain times of the day, Aena has opted to take action. Looking ahead to the summer of 2027, the operator will apply a series of adjustments to optimize its two hubs with greater activity, Barajas and El Prat, taking greater advantage of the strips in which it can still grow.
Both the airport Madrid like that of Barcelona They have projects on the table to strengthen their capacity in the future, but the idea is to improve traffic organization until then, taking advantage of the room for maneuver they have left. That Aena has decided to make a move just now is no coincidence. In 2025 both terminals saw their traffic grow until touching (or exceed) its operating limit, and everything indicates that tourism will continue to grow in 2026.
What do you want to do? In a release launched this morning, Aena explains that it wants to “optimize the use of available capacity” in Barajas and El Prat for next summer. As? “Ordering and distributing” the spaces in both terminals when responding to airlines that need slots.
In practice, this means that Aena will reconsider their way of working. Until now, it announced the total capacity of the aerodrome taking as a reference what was happening on the flight strips. In the future it will include capacity per terminal and specify passengers by space and type of traffic. It will do so, he specifies, “in the face of capacity limitations” at times of greatest saturation.
“Aena seeks to deseasonalize the new slots within peak hours of activity in favor of off-peak hours. This is a measure that will dynamically adapt the space of the terminals without limiting their current capacity. The aim is to make the terminals more efficient to guarantee quality service,” insist the airport manager before clarifying two aspects.
With expiration date. The first thing Aena specifies is that this “redistribution of spaces” will only affect airlines that want to grow in Barajas or El Prat at certain times and months. Second, that these limitations “will disappear” as soon as the investments planned for the year have been made. cycle 2027-2031 and that seek to reinforce the capacity of both terminals.
What the data says. It may seem excessive, but the data from the Ministry of Transportation speaks for itself. In 2025, the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport registered 68.18 million passengers and Barcelona-El Prat another 57.48.
Not only do they exceed 2024 results and pulverize the pre-pandemic marks, when both terminals moved respectively in 61.73 and 52.69 million. They also test the seams of both infrastructures. As remember The CountryRight now the capacity of the Madrid terminal is around 70 million passengers and the ceiling of the Catalan terminal is about 55 million.
Peak hours. Of course, these are annual data and the volume of passenger and airplane traffic fluctuates considerably throughout the year, but what is most worrying are the ‘peak’ moments in which activity skyrockets. For example, peak hours in certain summer weeks, when hundreds of thousands of families from all over the world pack their bags to travel. Both foreigners bound for Spain, and Spaniards flying to other parts of the country or the planet.
The new measure announced by Aena is not exceptional. In Heathrow either Amsterdam They already limited the number of flights or passengers after the pandemic, although in that case the reason was staff shortage for its management.
Beyond the “limitations”. In your statement Aena emphasizes that the “limitations” are only a temporary handicap and “will disappear once the proposed investments for the 2027-2031 investment cycle are executed”, the DORA 3. In fact, it comes after other news that important mobilizations of funds are advancing to strengthen the operations of the Spanish airport network.
In September 2025 the Government advertisement investment close to 12.9 billion of euros between 2027 and 2031. In total, the expansion of AS Madrid-Barajas will be allocated 4.5 billion and the objective, recognized by the Executive in 2024, is to reach a capacity of 90 million of travelers. In El Prat a draft improvement to raise your potential to 80 million.
Images | John Waco,jr (Unsplash), John Oswald (Unsplash) and Angela Compagnone (Unsplash)
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