Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport is the main international airport serving Madrid, the capital of Spain, and its metropolitan area. At in area, it is the second-largest airport in Europe by physical size behind Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. In 2025, 68.1 million passengers travelled through Madrid–Barajas, making it the country's busiest airport as well as Europe's fifth-busiest.
The airport opened in 1931 and has grown to be one of Europe's most important aviation centres. Within the city limits of Madrid, it is from the city's financial district and northeast of the Puerta del Sol or Plaza Mayor de Madrid, Madrid's historic centre. The airport name derives from the adjacent district of Barajas, which has its metro station on the same rail line serving the airport. Barajas serves as the gateway to the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of Europe and the world and is a key link between Europe and Latin America. Following the death of the first Spanish Prime Minister after Francisco Franco's dictatorship, Adolfo Suárez, in 2014, the Spanish Ministry of Public Works and Transport announced that the airport was to be renamed Aeropuerto Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas. The airport is the primary hub and maintenance base for Iberia, Iberia Express, Iberia Regional, Air Europa, Plus Ultra Líneas Aéreas and World2Fly. Consequently, Iberia is responsible for more than 40% of Barajas's traffic. The airport has five passenger terminals: T1, T2, T3, T4 and T4S.
History
Early years
The airport was constructed in 1927, opening to domestic and international air traffic on 22 April 1931, although regular commercial operations began two years later. A small terminal was constructed with a capacity for 30,000 passengers a year, in addition to several hangars and the building of the Avión Club. The first regular flight was established by Lineas Aéreas Postales Españolas (LAPE) with its route to Barcelona. In the 1930s, flights started to serve some European and African destinations, the first international flights from the airport.
Originally, the flight field was a large circle bordered in white with the name of Madrid in its interior, unpaved, consisting of land covered with natural grass. It was not until the 1940s that the flight field was paved and new runways were designed. The first runway which started operation in 1944 was long and wide. By the end of the decade the airport had three runways, none of which exist today. In the late 1940s, scheduled flights to Latin America and the Philippines started.
In the 1950s, the airport supported over half a million passengers, increasing to five runways and scheduled flights to New York City began. The National Terminal, currently T2, began construction in 1954 and opened later that year. In the Plan of Airports of 1957, Barajas Airport is classified as a first-class international airport. By the 1970s, large jets were landing at Barajas, and the growth of traffic mainly as a result of tourism exceeded forecasts. At the beginning of the decade, the airport reached the 1.2 million passengers, double that envisaged in the Plan of Airports of 1957.
In the 1970s, with the boom in tourism and the arrival of the Boeing 747, the airport reached 4 million passengers and began the construction of the international terminal (current T1). In 1974, Iberia, L.A.E. introduced the shuttle service between Madrid and Barcelona, a service with multiple daily frequencies and available without prior reservation.
The 1982 FIFA World Cup brought significant expansion and modernisation of the airport's two existing terminals.
In the 1990s, the airport expanded further. In 1994, the first cargo terminal was constructed and the control tower was renovated. In 1997, it opened the North Dock, which is used as an exclusive terminal for Iberia's Schengen flights. In 1998, it inaugurated a new control tower, tall and then in 1999 the new South Dock opened, which implies an expansion of the international terminal. During this time, the distribution of the terminals changed: The south dock and most of the International Terminal were now called T1, the rest of the International Terminal and Domestic Terminal were now called T2 and the north dock was called T3.
In November 1998, the new runway 18R-36L started operations (replacing the previous 18–36), long, one of the largest in Europe under expansion plans called Major Barajas. In 2000, it began the construction of new terminals T4 and its satellite, T4S, designed by architects Antonio Lamela, Richard Rogers and Luis Vidal. Two parallel runways to the existing ones were also built.
Development since the 2000s The new terminals and runways were completed in 2004, but were not in service until 5 February 2006.
Terminal 4, designed by Antonio Lamela, Richard Rogers and Luis Vidal, (winning team of the 2006 Stirling Prize) and TPS Engineers, (winning team of the 2006 IStructE Award for Commercial Structures) was built by Ferrovial and inaugurated on 5 February 2006. Terminal 4 is one of the world's largest airport terminals in terms of area, with 760,000 square meters (8,180,572 square feet) in separate landside and airside structures. It consists of a main building, T4 () and a satellite building, T4S (), which are approximately apart. The new Terminal 4 is designed to give passengers a stress-free start to their journey. This is managed through careful use of illumination, with glass panes instead of walls and numerous skylights which allow natural light into the structure. With this new addition, Barajas is designed to handle 70 million passengers annually.
During the construction of Terminal 4, two more runways (15L/33R and 18L/36R) were constructed to aid in the flow of air traffic arriving and departing from Barajas. These runways were officially inaugurated on 5 February 2006 (together with the terminals), but had already been used on several occasions beforehand to test flight and air traffic manoeuvres. Thus, Barajas came to have four runways: two on a north–south axis and parallel to each other (separated by ) and two on a northwest–southeast axis (and separated by ). This allowed simultaneous takeoffs and landings into the airport, allowing 120 operations an hour (one takeoff or landing every 30 seconds).
Terminals 1, 2 and 3 are adjacent terminals that are home to SkyTeam and Star Alliance airlines. Terminal 4 is home to Iberia, its franchise Air Nostrum and all Oneworld partner airlines. Gate numbers are continuous in terminals 1, 2 and 3 (A1 to E89), but are separately numbered in terminal 4 (H, J, K and M, R, S, U in satellite building).
The Madrid–Barcelona air shuttle service, known as the "Puente Aéreo" (in Spanish), literally called "Air Bridge", used to be the world's busiest with 971 flights per week in 2007. The schedule has been reduced since the February 2008 opening of the Madrid–Barcelona high-speed rail line which covers the distance in hours. Subsequently, the route has been overtaken by London-Dublin and Paris-Toulouse.
On the morning of 30 December 2006, an explosion took place in the carpark building module D attached to Terminal 4. Authorities received a bomb threat at approximately 8:15 local time (7:15 GMT), with the caller stating that a car bomb carried with of explosive would explode at 9:00 local time (8:00 GMT). After receiving the warning, police were able to evacuate part of the airport. Later, an anonymous caller stated that ETA claims responsibility for the bombing. As a result of the explosion, two Ecuadorians who were sleeping in their cars died. The whole module D of the car park was levelled creating around 40,000 tonnes of debris. It took workers six days to recover the body of the second victim from the rubble.
In 2007, the airport processed more than 52 million passengers. Barajas was voted "Best Airport" in the 2008 Condé Nast Traveller Reader Awards.
In December 2010, the Spanish government announced plans to tender Madrid–Barajas airport to companies in the private sector for a period of up to 40 years.
On 27 January 2012, Spanair suspended all flights affecting Madrid–Barajas as well as other domestic and international connections. On 20 September 2012, both runways 15/33 were renamed as 14R/32L (the longest) and 14L/32R (the shortest).
On 1 August 2015, the first scheduled Airbus A380 flight landed in Madrid-Barajas in a daily service to Dubai by Emirates.
Following the death of former Spanish Prime Minister, Adolfo Suárez, in 2014, the Spanish Ministry of Public Works and Transport announced that the airport would be renamed Aeropuerto Adolfo Suárez, Madrid–Barajas. This renaming seeks recognition for Suárez's role as the first Prime Minister of Spain after the restoration of democracy and his key participation in the transition to democracy after the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.
In late 2018 and early 2019, Iberia renovated its two lounges in Terminal 4, the Dali and Velazquez lounges.
In December 2019, the airport's operator Aena announced plans to expand and renovate the existing installations significantly, increasing their yearly capacity from 70 to 80 million passengers and bridging the architectural gap between the original Terminals 1, 2 and 3 and the newer Terminal 4. The project has a budget of €750 million and was scheduled to be executed over the period from 2022 to 2026.
Airlines and destinations Passenger
The following airlines serve regular scheduled flights to and from Madrid.aena.es – Airport destinations Retrieved 3 July 2021,
Cargo
Statistics
Passenger numbers
Year Passengers Aircraft movements Cargo (tonnes)200134,050,215 375,558 295,944200233,915,302 368,029 295,711200335,855,861 383,804 307,026200438,718,614 401,503 341,177200542,146,784 415,704 333,138200645,799,983 434,959 325,702200752,110,787 483,292 325,201200850,846,494 469,746 329,187200948,437,147 435,187 302,863201049,863,504 433,683 373,380201149,671,270 429,390 394,154201245,195,014 373,185 359,362201339,735,618 333,056 346,602201441,833,374 342,601 366,645201546,828,279 366,605 381,069201650,420,583 378,150 415,774201753,402,506 387,566 470,795201857,891,340 409,832 518,858201961,734,037 426,376 558,567202017,112,389 165,740 401,133202124,135,220 217,537 523,395202250,633,652 351,906 566,372202360,220,984389,179643,534202466,196,984420,182766,818202568,179,054430,616840,331 Source: Aena Statistics
Busiest routes + Busiest European routes (2025) Rank Destination Passengers Change 2024/25 1 Rome-Fiumicino 1,983,984 0,13% 2 Lisbon 1,852,887 2,84% 3 Paris-Orly 1,721,951 8,6% 4 London-Heathrow 1,500,925 3,19% 5 Amsterdam 1,330,096 8,2% 6 Brussels 1,032,654 1,8% 7 Milan-Malpensa 988,752 3,2% 8 Paris-Charles de Gaulle 985,089 7,0% 9 Porto 977,524 6,2% 10 Frankfurt 923,854 1,5% Source: Estadísticas de tráfico aereo
+ Busiest intercontinental routes (2025) Rank Destination Passengers Change 2024/25 1 Bogotá 1,658,541 3,0% 2 Buenos Aires-Ezeiza 1,168,847 8,4% 3 Mexico City 1,157,051 0,1% 4 Lima 1,033,685 4,9% 5 São Paulo-Guarulhos 1.018.970 18,6% 6 New York-JFK 834,440 0,6% 7 Miami 767,356 2,6% 8 Doha 680,698 10,3% 9 Santiago de Chile 673,434 2,9% 10 Santo Domingo 527,931 4,3% Source: Estadísticas de tráfico aereo
+ Busiest domestic routes (2025) Rank Destination Passengers Change 2024/25 1 Palma de Mallorca 2,222,189 0,7% 2 Gran Canaria 1,911,302 3,1% 3 Tenerife-North 1,790,897 0,1% 4 Barcelona 1,768,381 13,1% 5 Ibiza 935,121 2,7% 6 Bilbao 829,142 2,6% 7 A Coruña 803,620 3,3% 8 Vigo 731,757 6,5% 9 Málaga 652,841 6,4% 10 Lanzarote 646,433 0,1% Source: Estadísticas de tráfico aereo
Medical care The airport is attached to the Ramón y Cajal University Hospital in Madrid as a referral hospital for medical and surgical emergencies requiring hospital care.