📋 Tender Overview
ScopeBarcelona airport has seen huge growth in the past couple of decades with passenger numbers increasing from around 17.5 million in 1999 to almost 53 million in 2019 making it the 6th busiest airport in Europe.The company that manages the airport Aena has published a draft plan to expand it by building a new satellite terminal and extending one of the existing runways measures it says are needed if Barcelonas El Prat airport is to become an international hub. Before airports emptying due to the pandemic Aena began to meet administrations at the end of 2019 to propose this expansion project. This plan brought back the idea for a satellite terminal for long-haul flights and an ambition to lengthen the third runway by 500 metres to allow larger planes to fly transoceanic routes. These works the company claims would allow for an increase in capacity to 70 million passengers per year above the current theoretical limit of 55 million. In 2019 the last pre-pandemic year 52.6 million passengers passed through the airport. Aena says it would make a 1.7bn investment. This is one of the key points that has added a sudden sense of urgency to the debate. Aena assures that to avoid capacity problems the expansion has to be included in DORA II the airport regulation document for the period 2022-2027. The text is already in the hands of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and once a consensus has been found the Spanish government will have to give it the green light. The goal is to have the approval of the State its first shareholder in September. This DORA II would include the drafting of projects and minor works to start the earthworks but the bulk of the investment would be made in the next five-year plan from 2027 to 2031. Not keeping these deadlines would cause five years of a collapsed airport Aena sources insist . Even so other voices in the industry consider that the rush is not justified and that the roadmap could be adapted to allow a more calm dialogue.The ecological organisations and neighbourhood associations denounce that the works would affect Ricarda lagoon a natural area protected by the Natura 2000 Network. These wetlands are the habitat of an important population of aquatic birds which also use this point as a stopping point in their migrations. The biodiversity of the Ricarda also includes a score of different species of orchids and native vegetation such as stone pines. Experts argue that this ecosystem is documented since the seventeenth century but the president of Aena Maurici Lucena claims that it is an artificial environment and that works could replicate these spaces in other parts of the delta. He proposes to multiply tenfold each of the affected hectares. The European Commission - which has to validate the project - has alerted the administrations that the environmental compensations for the previous airport expansion are yet to be completed a fact that has contributed to the degradation
