2004 saw a third runway brought into service, and the lengthening of the airport’s oldest runway to 3,743 metres and widened to 60 metres. Terminal C was inaugurated in 2008, comprising of 2,200 square metres with 14 new check-in desks, 2 baggage reclaim carousels and a ticket sales office.

WORLD ROUTES 2017 will take place in Barcelona, Catalonia, hosted by Aeroports de Catalunya. It will be held in the hugely impressive International convention centre, Fira De Barcelona between September 23-26, 2017. Read the official release.

2009 brought the opening of the new Terminal 1 – the most symbolic expansion project at the airport. The €1,200million project consisted of a terminal building 500,000 square metres in size, providing the airport with the infrastructure and capacity required to make it one of the largest airports in the Mediterranean region. The terminal has 101 boarding gates, 166 check-in desks, 12,000 parking spaces and in excess of 20,000 square metres of shopping areas.

The expansion of the airport has enabled it to handle a more substantial increase in passenger traffic and this is visible in the passenger statistics from the previous ten years.

It is a main base for Vueling, a hub for Iberia Regional and low-cost giant Ryanair as well as a focus city for Air Europa.

The airport has seen an overall rise of 22.1per cent in annual scheduled capacity for both domestic and international flights combined.

Data provided by

The above chart demonstrates the annual scheduled capacity from Barcelona El Prat Airport from 2005 - 2014. As we can see, the domestic scheduled capacity was much greater in 2005, and succeeded the amount of international departures in that year. By 2008, the amount of international departures from the airport hasd overtaken the domestic services, and by 2014, domestic departures had experienced a -30.8 per cent decline, whereas international departures had increased by 82.8% by 2014 in comparison to 2005.

Data provided by

The above chart shows the main O&D markets from Barcelona. Since 2013, domestic Spanish demand has suffered a -2.6 per cent decrease in comparison to the 2014 market. Italy and the Russian Federation are amongst the countries with the highest increase, with the Italian market registering a 21 per cent increase, and the Russian Federation a huge 23.6 per cent in comparison to 2013.

The Netherlands have seen no change, and Switzerland only a 0.5% increase. The United States long-haul market has registered a 7.2 per cent increase, highlighting an increase in the long-haul market since the airport completed its new Terminal 1 building.