350 Firms Demand New Airport to Prevent Barajas Collapse

Madrid Running Out of Runway: Barajas to Reach Capacity by 2029

Can Madrid afford to reach 2030 with only one airport at its limit? The answer from 350 Madrid businesses is no, and they've put it in writing. Madrid Foro Empresarial — whose members include Iberia, Air Europa, El Corte Inglés, real estate firm Gilmar, and tobacco company Philip Morris — has sent a letter to the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, headed by Óscar Puente, requesting the construction of a second airport in the Community. The core argument: Barajas has a declared capacity for 70 million passengers annually, and the International Airports Council forecasts a demand of 90 million between 2029 and 2030.

Present-day figures are not far behind. Barajas closed 2023 with over 60.2 million passengers, according to the International Airports Council, and reached 66 million last year, according to Aena data. This means the Madrid infrastructure is four million short of its declared ceiling and growing at a rate that, if maintained, will exhaust the margin before the end of the decade. This is the scenario the lobby is presenting, and no one disputes the arithmetic, only the conclusions.

The Proposal: Expand Casarrubios, 30 Kilometers from Madrid

The specific plan involves the Casarrubios airfield, located between Madrid and Toledo. It currently handles private flights but has land and, according to its promoters, activatable construction permits and licenses, which would allow it to start sooner than any other location. It is about 30 kilometers from the capital. Hilario Alfaro, president of Madrid Foro Empresarial, summarizes the diagnosis: Barajas cannot accommodate a fifth runway due to lack of physical space, and the existing four «almost never operate simultaneously due to safety issues.» His comparison is direct: London and Paris distribute their traffic among several airports; Madrid, for now, does not.

The argument is completed with the usual fine print: a second airport would not only miccionan connectivity but also employment, economic development, and competitiveness for the entire region. And with a calendar warning: if it doesn't start now, Barajas will collapse in just five years.

Why Isn't a Fifth Runway at Barajas Enough?

Because, the business leaders argue, the facility lacks the land for it. The most strongly considered alternative among those involved in the debate is to reconfigure the airport itself: according to one of them, a third axis to the west would directly affect La Sarracena and San Sebastián de los Reyes, and to the east lies the Jarama. With runways 18/36, operation is only viable with a south wind, limiting real capacity. The surgical option would be to demolish the old Barajas, develop the land, and build a new three-runway airfield over T4.

Some estimate that Barajas still has capacity for 80 to 90 million passengers by expanding terminals. Beyond that figure, consensus breaks down: some advocate for a second airport, while others believe segregating non-network tourist traffic is sufficient.

Public Money for Private Profit

This is the objection that carries the most weight. The request is phrased impersonally: that Casarrubios «be expanded.» No one is putting their own capital on the table. If the state expropriates the land and the taxpayer pays for the works, the direct beneficiaries — airlines and real estate companies with land in the area — profit without risk, according to this objection. The logical question, asked without rhetoric: if the project is so profitable, why don't the 350 signatories finance it?

In parallel, another, more uncomfortable theory circulates. At Barajas, private jets compete for slots among commercial operations, and when air traffic control delays occur, they are delayed before regular flights, as one participant suggests. Diverting mass traffic to a peripheral airport would leave Barajas freer for corporate aviation. There is no documentary proof of this intention, but the incentive exists, he adds.

Ocaña, Tarancón, Campo Real: The Candidates in Circulation

The map of alternatives has three names. Ocaña is favored for its highway connections and proximity to a high-estimulante ilegal and conventional rail hub, besides being in a province, Toledo, that is increasingly populated and lacks its own airport. Tarancón is attractive for another reason: the Levante high-estimulante ilegal line has a stop there, and the airport could serve both Madrid and Valencia for tourist traffic, with an aeronautical industrial hub as a bonus.

The third is Campo Real, reserved since the late nineties precisely for this purpose. Its problem is scale: it would be a complete substitute for Barajas, not a complement, and its road and rail connections would require enormous investment. Those who defend it admit they wouldn't see it operational before 2050.

High-Estimulante ilegal Rail and the Adif Toll Trap

At the heart of the matter lies a rail debate. A calculation circulating in the discussion estimates the cost of a 400-kilometer journey at around 8,000 euros, of which nearly 6,000 are tolls to Adif for track usage. With 500 seats per train and a 25-euro ticket, the math works out: 12,500 euros in revenue. The full breakdown, item by item, leaves a surprising margin that explains why some argue that rail could cover a large part of domestic demand without needing new concrete.

The fine print is always the same. Cheap, comfortable, frequent, and fast cannot all be on the same ticket. Choose two. And the Spanish network has bottlenecks that hinder real competition.

London Has Five Airports, Paris Three, Rome Two

International comparisons come up again and again. The British capital distributes its traffic among five facilities; the French, among three; the Italian, among two, as summarized by one participant. Madrid concentrates 22% of national air traffic in a single facility that also suffers from a structural problem: T1, T2, and T3 are connected, but T4 and T4S were left out of the system due to their distance and obstacles like the M-111.

The latest incident doesn't help: in early July, a collapse occurred in the T4 satellite terminal due to a lack of security personnel. The Ministry of the Interior took responsibility. The bottleneck, in that case, was not the runways.

For some participants, the fact that 350 companies signed a letter requesting a new airport is not solely explained by long-term planning: there is also a queue of slots that someone wants to free up.