Yesterday, the Spanish government announced that Barcelona airport would receive almost two billion euros for an expansion project. Given Barcelona’s problems of housing shortage, over-tourism, and a failed regional railway system, it would seem that a large international airport is the very last place this money should be spent.
Don’t get me wrong: I love to travel, and I use BCN airport regularly. I can also say that the airport is fine just the way it is. It’s bright, airy, and as pleasant as an airport can possibly be. BCN handled 57.5 million passengers in 2025, setting a record. It doesn’t need an expansion.
So, why is BCN being expanded, then? Evidently to handle even more passengers, which of course means even more tourists on sidewalks and in subways that are already crammed. The metro is often clogged with interminable line-ups of tourists trying to figure out how to buy tickets from the machines, an unnecessarily complicated ordeal for first-time users. The city cannot handle more tourists. There is simply not enough room.
I don’t blame tourists for over-tourism. It’s not their fault, but that of the Catalan business elite –four powerful families– that packaged and sold this city to mass-tourism in the 1990s. It is this handful of wealthy hoteliers and short-term apartment owners and developers that are benefitting from over-tourism, and that have been incessantly lobbying in favor of expanding the airport, of course.
Meanwhile, the cost of housing has gone through the roof because of a massive shortage (caused in part by tourism), forcing many local people to have to move to the periphery and commute into the city center on a regional railway system (Rodalies) that constantly breaks down due to under-investment. Meanwhile, the AP7 highway ranks among Spain’s most accident-prone roads as it is clogged with semi-trailers (freight-rail is almost non-existent in Spain).
Then there’s the global problem of climate change caused by carbon emissions, to which air transportation contributes significantly. It is utterly irresponsible to expand an airport, thereby expanding global flight capacity, when carbon emissions need to be urgently and drastically reduced.
Let’s instead fix and expand rail and build affordable housing with this money. Tourists have it well-enough in Barcelona already.
