The comparison that Maite Gutiérrez offers us today in the Economy pages of La Vanguardia is clear: the Adolfo Suárez de Barajas airport doubles Josep Tarradellas in El Prat on long-haul routes. A total of 146 routes and 80 destinations for the first and 71 routes and 47 destinations for the second. It would not be necessary to go too far in recalling the studies that indicate that the majority of large companies decide to locate their factories in cities that offer long-haul airports. Barajas' advantage over El Prat will increase in the coming years because the Madrid airport expansion project has already been approved and the works are about to start. They will involve the expansion of its terminals, so it is expected that Barajas will be able to compete face to face with the large European airport nodes and will consolidate itself as a great bridge between Asia and Latin America.
And the Prat? Well, you already know. Waiting for some political decision to leave things as they are or address the necessary expansion of the airport. The Aena project that involved creating a new terminal and expanding one of the runways was halted because it put the Ricarda lagoon in El Prat at risk. Since then we have been witnessing a well-intentioned procession of proposals of all kinds to try to correct this problem – runways over the sea, diagonal runways occupying part of the coast, use of the Girona and Reus aerodromes, creating another airport in another place or using the maximum one of the tracks of El Prat, but with serious affectation by noise for the neighbors. Foment del Treball has created a commission with representatives of different civil society entities and also experts, from environmentalists to engineers, including philosophers. Its conclusions will be presented publicly shortly, although they have already been presented to Aena and representatives of the Administration.
The final decision will depend a lot on the Government. The time has come for a decision to be made, which will be unpopular and difficult, but this is what governing is. But you have to get the airport out of the fridge and decide its future.
