Barcelona International Airport

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Barcelona International Airport
Aeropuerto de Barcelona
IATA: BCN – ICAO: LEBL
Summary
Airport type Public
Owner Aeropuertos Españoles y Navegación Aérea (AENA)
Location El Prat de Llobregat, Barcelona, Catalonia
Elevation AMSL 12 ft / 4 m
Coordinates 41°17′49″N 2°04′02″E / 41.29694, 2.06722
Runways
Direction Length Surface
ft m
7L/25R 12,281 3,743 Concrete
7R/25L 8,727 2,660 Asphalt
2/20 8,334 2,540 Asphalt
Interior view of the airport
Interior view of the airport

Barcelona International Airport (IATA: BCNICAO: LEBL), also known as El Prat, is the main airport serving Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It is located 10 km away from the centre of Barcelona, in El Prat de Llobregat.

The airport is the largest in Catalonia and Spain's second largest behind Madrid Barajas International Airport. It is a main hub for Vueling Airlines and Clickair, and a focus city for Spanair, Air Europa and Iberia Airlines (until spring 2008). The airport mainly serves domestic, European and North African destinations, but Singapore Airlines offers destinations to Asia. Aeromexico, US Airways, American Airlines, Continental Airlines and Delta Air Lines to North America. Aerolineas Argentinas and Avianca also offers non-stop destinations to Central America / South America. The airport is undergoing expansion with the construction of a new south terminal, expected to be finished in 2009.

In 2007, 32,800,570 passengers[1] used Barcelona International Airport.

The Barcelona-Madrid air shuttle service, known as the "Pont Aeri", literally "Air Bridge", is the world’s busiest route, with the highest number of flight operations (971 per week).[2]

Contents

[edit] History

Barcelona's first airfield, located at el Remolar, began operations in 1916. However, it did not have good expansion prospects and so a new airport at El Prat opened in 1918. The first plane was a Latecoere Salmson 300 which arrived from Toulouse. The airport was used as a base by the Spanish Navy's Zeppelin fleet. Scheduled commercial service began in 1927 with an Iberia service to Madrid.

In 1948, the first overseas service was operated by Pan American World Airways to New York, using a Lockheed Constellation. A new control tower was built in 1965 and the terminal was rebuilt in 1968.

The airport underwent a major development in preparation for the 1992 Summer Olympics with the construction of a second terminal (designed by Ricardo Bofill).

A plan for expansion (Plan Barcelona) [2] includes a third terminal building (also designed by Ricardo Bofill) and control tower. An additional runway (07R/25L) has been built. Once these developments are complete in the beginning of 2009 , the airport will be capable of handling 55 million passengers annually (compared to 32,8 million passengers in 2007). The airport is slated to expand in area from 8.45 to 15.33 km² by 2009. A further expansion is planned to be finished by 2012, with a new satellite terminal which will raise the capacity to 70 million passengers annually.

After maintaining a presence in the airport for over eighty years, Iberia will withdraw all of its services to Barcelona (Exept Puente Aereo Madrid-Barcelona-Madrid, wich departs and arrives every 30 minutes) in the spring of 2008 and replace them with Clickair services, despite Barcelona being one of the airports with more growing potential in Europe.

[edit] Statistics

Passenger Evolution
Year Nr.Pax % Year Nr.Pax %
1963 1.000.000 - 1999 17.421.938 7.6
1977 5.000.000 - 2000 19.809.567 13.8
1990 9.205.000 - 2001 20.745.536 4.7
1991 9.145.000 -0.7 2002 21.348.211 2.9
1992 10.196.000 11.5 2003 22.752.667 6.6
1993 9.999.000 -2.0 2004 24.558.138 7.9
1994 10.647.285 6.5 2005 27.152.745 10.6
1995 11.727.814 10.1 2006 30.008.152 10.5
1996 13.434.679 14.6 2007 32.800.570 9.3
1997 15.065.724 12.1 2008 9.537.330 0.4
1998 16.194.805 7.3

Source: Barcelona Airport, AENA.

January-April data for 2008.

Operations Evolution
Year Operations %
1999 233.609 -
2000 255.913 9.5
2001 273.119 6.3
2002 271.023 -0.8
2003 282.021 4.1
2004 291.369 3.3
2005 307.798 5.6
2006 327.636 6.4
2007 351.297 7.6
2008 108.136 -2.9
Cargo Evolution
Year Tm. %
1999 86.217 -
2000 88.269 2.4
2001 81.882 -7.8
2002 75.905 -7.3
2003 70.118 -7.6
2004 84.985 21.2
2005 90.446 6.4
2006 93.404 3.3
2007 96.770 3.6
2008 33.300 5.6
First Airlines by number of Passengers
Airline 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Iberia Airlines 8.416.024 9.594.763 9.606.867 9.047.358 9.284.036 9.504.150 9.589.497 9.117.380 6.492.493 1.129.999
Spanair 1.478.399 1.580.340 1.886.626 2.119.401 2.392.384 2.567.024 3.266.038 3.931.719 4.243.633 1.390.521
Clickair 198.890 3.279.656 1.517.667
Vueling Airlines 259.450 1.332.648 2.144.034 3.082.612 943.185
Air Europa 1.001.022 1.209.414 1.404.409 1.473.937 1.592.004 2.003.872 2.176.306 2.298.330 2.360.183 726.710
easyJet 349.566 450.596 539.010 840.735 1.258.581 1.384.690 1.327.399 1.411.681 1.593.412 542.357
Lufthansa 666.338 761.878 812.512 806.797 814.853 898.646 949.697 1.082.965 1.117.922 353.321
Air Nostrum 440.042 576.021 670.701 758.434 753.067 781.459 898.164 1.044.913 1.110.548 293.627
Air France 514.218 626.742 698.528 777.939 738.129 749.833 766.343 830.618 846.093 257.466
British Airways 617.489 600.587 640.809 674.314 617.579 638.243 631.600 645.264 658.824 202.135
KLM 294.285 339.656 396.474 462.635 483.764 529.751 551.011 544.814 583.203 173.574
Alitalia 470.058 483.521 466.937 484.239 479.301 434.813 505.528 574.569 565.145 155.112
Swiss International Air Lines 48.256 317.852 292.780 382.067 420.524 498.726 162.902
airberlin 626 23.166 190.902 330.376 434.358 450.442 465.128 144.340
TAP Portugal 175.162 203.431 190.051 210.249 231.578 245.447 256.984 275.707 308.861 112.200
transavia.com 96.953 145.644 260.100 328.263 313.577 291.054 292.350 287.149 280.254 49.488
easyJet Switzerland 28.506 130.534 143.792 143.017 164.333 187.672 230.894 275.193 269.375 88.016
Sterling Airlines 1.213 39.064 69.475 85.390 88.562 214.452 227.189 47.281
Delta Air Lines 117.236 141.781 120.003 126.297 118.644 159.736 155.917 178.331 204.833 59.059
Brussels Airlines 70.257 41.591 7.162 202.480 77.948

Source: Barcelona Airport, AENA.

January-April data for 2008.

[edit] Transport

The airport is accessible by RENFE commuter train on the R10 line, which runs from the Estació de França terminus, with major stops at Barcelona Sants railway station and the fairly central Passeig de Gràcia railway station to provide transfer to the Barcelona Metro system. As part of the major expansion above, a new train station will be built nearby, connecting the airport to the Spanish AVE network, and to both Line 2 and Line 9 of the Barcelona Metro.

The TMB public bus on line 46 runs every 25 minutes from Plaça Espanya. A scheduled private bus line (Aerobús) from Plaça Catalunya, stops at Sants and Plaça d'Espanya. Taxi stops are available at each terminal. The C-32B highway connects the airport to a main traffic interchange between Barcelona's Ronda de Dalt beltway and major highways.

[edit] Airlines and destinations

[edit] Terminal A

Terminal A
Terminal A

[edit] Terminal B

Terminal B
Terminal B
  • airberlin (Berlin-Tegel, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Palma de Mallorca)
  • Air Europa (Fuerteventura [seasonal], Gran Canaria, Ibiza, Lanzarote, La Palma [seasonal], Madrid, Menorca, Palma de Mallorca, Seville, Tenerife-North, Tenerife-South, Tunis)
  • Air Transat (Montréal, Toronto-Pearson)
  • American Airlines (New York-JFK)
  • Arkia (Tel Aviv)
  • Austrian Airlines
  • British Airways (London-Gatwick, London-Heathrow)
  • Clickair (Alicante, Amsterdam, Asturias, Athens, Berlin-Tegel, Bilbao, Brussels, Bucharest-Otopeni, Budapest, Casablanca, Dublin [seasonal], Dubrovnik [seasonal], Edinburgh [seasonal], Frankfurt, Gran Canaria, Granada, Ibiza, Istanbul [begins July 1], La Coruna, Lisbon, Ljubljana [seasonal], Marrakesh, Málaga, Malta [seasonal], Menorca, Milan-Malpensa, Moscow-Domodedovo [seasonal], Munich, Nador [seasonal], Naples, Palermo, Palma de Mallorca, Pisa, Porto, Prague, Rome-Fiumicino, Santiago de Compostela, Seville, Sofia, Tangier [seasonal], Tel Aviv, Tenerife North, Venice, Verona, Vienna, Vigo, Warsaw, Zürich)
  • Continental Airlines (Newark)
  • El Al (Tel Aviv)
  • Flyglobespan (Aberdeen [seasonal], Edinburgh, Glasgow-International)
  • Iberia (London-Heathrow, Paris-Orly)
  • LTE International Airways (Venice)
  • Lufthansa (Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich)
  • Scandinavian Airlines (Gothenburg-Landvetter, Oslo, Stockholm-Arlanda)
  • Singapore Airlines (Singapore)
  • Spanair (A Coruña, Algiers, Alicante, Asturias, Banjul, Bilbao, Copenhagen, Fuerteventura, Granada, Gran Canaria, Ibiza, Jerez de la Frontera, Lanzarote, Madrid, Malaga, Menorca, Munich, Palma de Mallorca, Santiago de Compostela, Seville, Stockholm-Arlanda, Tenerife North, Tenerife-South, Valencia, Vigo, Zürich)
  • Vueling Airlines (Amsterdam, Athens, Brussels, Granada, Ibiza, Jerez de la Frontera, Lisbon, Madrid, Malaga, Menorca, Milan-Malpensa, Nice, Palma de Mallorca, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Rome-Fiumicino, Santiago de Compostela, Seville, Venice)

[edit] Terminal C

  • Iberia (Madrid)
    • Iberia operated by Air Nostrum (Albacete, Almeria, Badajoz, Bologna, Burgos [planed summer 2008], Cagliari [seasonal], Leon, Logroño, Marseille, Melilla, Murcia, Nantes, Nice, Olbia-Costa Smeralda [seasonal], Pamplona, Salamanca, San Sebastián, Santander, Tangier [seasonal], Turin, Valencia, Valladolid, Vitoria)
  • Corporate and General Aviation

[edit] Charter Airlines

Inside El Prat
Inside El Prat

Airlines that operated to or from El Prat in summer 2007

[edit] Cargo airlines

[edit] References

  • Zunino, Eric (November 2004) "Barcelona Airport", Airline World, pp. 40-43.

[edit] External links