Barcelona International Airport

Infobox Airport
name = Barcelona International Airport
nativename = Aeropuerto de Barcelona
IATA = BCN
ICAO = LEBL
type = Public
owner = Aeropuertos Españoles y Navegación Aérea (AENA)
location = El Prat de Llobregat, Barcelona, Catalonia
elevation-f = 12
elevation-m = 4
coordinates = coord|41|17|49|N|2|04|02|E|type:airport
r1-number = 7L/25R
r1-length-f = 12,281
r1-length-m = 3,743
r1-surface = Concrete
r2-number = 7R/25L
r2-length-f = 8,727
r2-length-m = 2,660
r2-surface = Asphalt
r3-number = 2/20
r3-length-f = 8,334
r3-length-m = 2,540
r3-surface = Asphalt

Barcelona International Airport airport codes|BCN|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. Singapore Airlines offers destinations to Asia; Aeromexico, US Airways, American Airlines, Continental Airlines and Delta Air Lines serve to North America; Aerolineas Argentinas and Avianca also offer 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, 32,898,249 passengers [ [http://estadisticas.aena.es/csee/ContentServer?pagename=Estadisticas/Home AENA traffic Statistics] ] used Barcelona International Airport.

The Barcelona-Madrid air shuttle service, known as the "Pont Aeri" (in Catalan) or "Puente Aéreo" (in Spanish), literally "Air Bridge", is the world's busiest route, with the highest number of flight operations (971 per week) in 2007. [ [http://www.oag.com/oag/website/com/OAG+Data/News/Press+Room/Press+Releases+2007/OAG+reveals+latest+industry+intelligence+on+the+busiest+routes+2109072 OAG reveals latest industry intelligence on the busiest routes ] ] The schedule has been reduced in 2008 since a Madrid-Barcelona high-speed rail line was opened in February 2008, covering the distance in 2½ hours, and it quickly became popular.

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) [http://www.aena.es/csee/Satellite?cid=1069835097829&pagename=Microsite%2Fmicrosite&SMO=1&p=1069405187914&c=Microsite_FA&MO=3] 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 (Except Puente Aereo Madrid-Barcelona-Madrid, which 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. Instead Iberia plans to introduce at least 4 new services to the Americas by 2008/2009 as a response to the great demand. Similarly it plans to use El Prat's new terminal for the destinations to Asia which it hopes to establish by 2009. Although these new routes will also leave also from Madrid, Iberia hopes El Prat will become Spain's main gate to Asia (the market which it does not yet have a decent presence in), whilst Madrid focuses more on America and Africa.

Statistics

|

"Source: Barcelona Airport, AENA.

"January-April data for 2008.

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 motorways.

Airlines and destinations

Terminal A

*Adria Airways (Ljubljana) [seasonal]
*Aer Lingus (Belfast-International, Cork, Dublin)
*Aeroflot (Moscow-Sheremetyevo)
*Aerolineas Argentinas (Buenos Aires-Ezeiza)
*Aeroméxico (Mexico City)
*Air Algérie (Algiers)
*Air France (Paris-Charles de Gaulle)
**Air France operated by Brit Air (Lyon)
**Air France operated by Régional (Bordeaux, Nantes)
*Air Malta (Malta, Reggio Calabria) [seasonal]
*airBaltic (Riga, Vilnius)
*Alitalia (Milan-Linate, Rome-Fiumicino)
**some operated by Alitalia Express
*Atlas Blue (Marrakech, Tangier)
*Avianca (Bogotá)
*Blue Air (Arad, Bucharest-Bǎneasa)
*Blue1 (Helsinki)
*bmibaby (Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester)
*Brussels Airlines (Brussels)
*Bulgaria Air (Sofia)
*Centralwings (Krakow)
*Czech Airlines (Prague)
*Delta Air Lines (Atlanta, New York-JFK)
*Egyptair (Cairo, Luxor)
*Estonian Air (Tallinn) [seasonal]
*Finnair (Helsinki)
*FlySur (Córdoba)
*Germanwings (Cologne/Bonn, Stuttgart)
*Iceland Express (Reykjavik-Keflavik)
*Icelandair (Reykjavik-Keflavik) [seasonal]
*Jet2.com (Belfast-International, Leeds/Bradford)
*KD Avia (Kaliningrad)
*KLM (Amsterdam)
*Lithuanian Airlines (Vilnius) [seasonal]
*LOT Polish Airlines (Warsaw)
*Luxair (Luxembourg)
*Meridiana (Florence)
*Monarch Airlines (Manchester)
*MyAir (Bari, Venice)
*Norwegian Air Shuttle (Oslo-Rygge)
*Pakistan International Airlines (Karachi) [planned for 2009]
*Rossiya (St. Petersburg)
*Royal Air Maroc (Casablanca, Tangier)
*Royal Jordanian (Amman)
*SkyEurope (Bratislava, Prague, Vienna)
*Smart Wings (Prague)
*Sterling Airlines (Copenhagen, Malmö, Oslo, Stockholm-Arlanda)
*Swiss International Air Lines (Geneva, Zürich)
**Swiss International Air Lines operated by Swiss European Airlines (Basel/Mulhouse)
*Syrian Arab Airlines (Damascus)
*TAP Portugal (Lisbon, Madeira, Porto)
** some operated by Portugalia
*TAROM (Bucharest-Otopeni, Cluj Napoca)
*Transaero (Moscow-Domodedovo)
*transavia.com (Amsterdam)
*Tunisair (Tunis, Monastir [seasonal] )
*Turkish Airlines (Istanbul-Atatürk)
*Ukraine International Airlines (Kiev-Boryspil, Lviv)
*Ural Airlines (Ekaterinburg) [seasonal]
*US Airways (Philadelphia) [seasonal]
*VIM Airlines (Moscow-Domodedovo)
*VolaSalerno (Salerno)
*Windjet (Catania, Palermo)
*Wizz Air (Bucharest-Băneasa, Cluj-Napoca, Timişoara [begins March 11] )

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, Vancouver [begins June 5, 2009] )
*American Airlines (New York-JFK)
*Arkia (Tel Aviv)
*Austrian Airlines
**Austrian Airlines operated by Austrian Arrows (Vienna)
*British Airways (London-Gatwick, London-Heathrow)
**British Airways operated by BA CityFlyer (London-City)
*Clickair (Alicante, Amsterdam, Asturias, Athens, Berlin-Tegel, Bilbao, Brussels, Bucharest-Otopeni, Budapest, Casablanca, Dubrovnik [seasonal] , Edinburgh [seasonal] , Frankfurt, Gran Canaria, Granada, Ibiza, Istanbul, La Coruna, Lisbon, Ljubljana [seasonal] , Marrakesh, Málaga, Malta [seasonal] , Menorca, Milan-Malpensa, Moscow-Domodedovo [seasonal] , Munich, Naples, Palermo, Palma de Mallorca, Pisa, Porto, Prague, Rome-Fiumicino, Santiago de Compostela, Seville, Tel Aviv, Tenerife-North, Venice, Verona, Vienna, Vigo, Warsaw, Zürich)
*Continental Airlines (Newark)
*easyJet (Belfast-International, Berlin-Schönefeld, Bristol, Dortmund, East Midlands, Liverpool, London-Gatwick, London-Luton, London-Stansted, Lyon, Milan-Malpensa, Newcastle, Paris-Orly)
**easyJet operated by easyJet Switzerland (Basel/Mulhouse, Geneva)
*El Al (Tel Aviv)
*Flyglobespan (Aberdeen [seasonal] , Edinburgh, Glasgow-International)
*Iberia (London-Heathrow, Paris-Orly)
*LTE International Airways (Venice)
*Lufthansa (Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich)
**Lufthansa Regional operated by Air Dolomiti (Milan-Malpensa [begins February 2009] )
**Lufthansa Regional operated by Eurowings (Stuttgart)
**Lufthansa Regional operated by Lufthansa CityLine (Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart)
*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, La Palma [seasonal] , Madrid, Malaga, Menorca, Munich, Palma de Mallorca, Santiago de Compostela, Seville, Stockholm-Arlanda, Tenerife North, Tenerife-South, Valencia, Vigo, Zürich)
** some operated by AeBal

Terminal C

*Iberia (Madrid)
**Iberia operated by Air Nostrum (Albacete, Almeria, Badajoz, Bologna, Burgos, Cagliari [seasonal] , Ciudad Real [begins October 27] , Leon, Logroño, Marseille, Melilla, Murcia, Nantes, Nice, Olbia-Costa Smeralda [seasonal] , Pamplona, Salamanca, San Sebastián, Santander, Tangier , Turin, Valencia, Valladolid, Vitoria)
*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)

Corporate and General Aviation

**CN Air
**CorporateJet XXI
**Euro Continental Air
**Executive Airlines
**Gestair
**NetJets
**Universal Jet

Charter Airlines

Airlines that operated to or from El Prat in summer 2007
*Aeroflot Don (Rostov-on-Don)
*Aeroflot Nord (Arkhangelsk)
*Air Algerie (Tindouf)
*Air Cairo (Cairo, Luxor)
*Air Comet (Cancun, Fuerteventura, La Palma, Lanzarote, Monastir, Samaná-El Catey, Punta Cana, Tenerife South)
*Air Europa (Aswan, Bergen-Flesland, Billund, Budapest, Copenhagen, Djerba, Luxor, Prague, St. Petersburg, Tel Aviv)
*Air Memphis (Aswan, Cairo)
*Air One (Rome-Fiumicino)
*Air Pullmantur
*AMC Airlines (Aswan, Cairo, Luxor, Sharm El Sheikh)
*Arkhangelsk Airlines (Arkhangelsk)
*Astraeus (Manchester)
*Atlant-Soyuz Airlines (Moscow-Vnukovo)
*Atlasjet (Antalya, Istanbul-Atatürk)
*Aurela (Vilnius)
*Aviaprad (Ekaterinburg)
*Belavia (Minsk)
*Blue Line (Biarritz, Lisbon, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Rhodes, Tivat)
*Blue Panorama (Bari, Rome-Fiumicino)
*Continental Airways (Moscow-Domodevo)
*Dagestan Airlines (Moscow-Vnukovo)
*Dubrovnik Airline (Dubrovnik, Rijeka, Zagreb)
*Eurofly (Milan-Malpensa)
*Europe Airpost
*First Choice Airways (Glasgow-International)
*Flightline (Bari, Ioannina, Madrid, Menorca, Turin)
*Iberworld (Almeria, Bamako, Banjul, Cancun, Fuerteventura, La Palma, Lanzarote, Palma de Mallorca, Punta Cana, Tenerife South)
*Inter Airlines (Nevsehir)
*Israir (Tel Aviv)
*ItAli Airlines (Pescara)
*JetX Airlines (Reykjavik-Keflavik)
*Karthago Airlines (Monastir)
*Kras Air (Moscow-Domodevo)
*Lagunair (Pau-Uzein)
*LTE International Airways (Lanzarote, Tenerife South, Venice)
*Mistral Air
*Monarch Airlines (Glasgow-International)
*Montenegro Airlines (Podgorica)
*Moscow Airways (Aswan, Cairo, Luxor)
*Neos (Bolonia, Milan-Malpensa, Rome-Fiumicino)
*Nouvelair (Monastir)
*Privilege Style (Athens, Istanbul-Sabiha Gokcen, Naples)
*Onur Air (Antalya, Istanbul-Atatürk)
*Pegasus Airlines (Antalya, Istanbul-Atatürk)
*Red Wings (Moscow-Vnukovo)
*Rossiya (Kaliningrad-Khrabrovo, Moscow-Domodevo, Moscow-Vnukovo, Samara)
*S7 Airlines (Moscow-Domodedovo, Novosibirsk, Perm)
*Samara Airlines (Samara)
*Spanair (Athens, Budapest, Dubrovnik, Heraklion, Istanbul-Sabiha Gökçen, La Palma, Malta, Moscow-Domodevo, Moscow-Vnukovo, Olbia-Costa Smeralda, St. Petersburg, Tenerife South, Tunis, Venice)
*Sun D'Or (Tel Aviv)
*Swiftair (Bari, Fuerteventura, La Palma, Madrid, Tenerife South)
*Tatarstan Airlines (Moscow-Vnukovo)
*Thomas Cook Airlines (Belgium) (Brussels, Liège)
*TNT Airways (Liège)
*Transkel Airways (Samara)
*Vladivostok Air (Ekaterinburg, Ufa)

Cargo airlines

*Cargoitalia (Milan-Malpensa)
*Cargolux (Hong Kong, Jeddah, Luxembourg)
*DHL Air (Vitoria-Gasteiz)
*Emirates SkyCargo (Dubai, Mexico City)
*FedEx Express (Paris)
*Jade Cargo International (Brescia, Shenzhen)
*Swiftair
*TNT Airways (Liege, Brussels)
*UPS (Cologne/Bonn, Valencia)

References

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

External links

* [http://www.aena.es/csee/Satellite?pagename=Estandar%2FPage%2FAeropuerto&SMO=-1&SiteName=BCN&c=Page&MO=0&lang=EN_GB Official Website in English]
* [http://www.castelldefels.com/aeroport/index.html Barcelona Airport, in English]
* [http://www.aena.es/csee/Satellite?cid=1069835097829&pagename=Microsite%2Fmicrosite&SMO=1&p=1069405187914&c=Microsite_FA&MO=3 Plan Barcelona Official Website - Spanish Only]