The «Barajas Plan» 2000-2010
In the year 2000, the airport was on the verge of saturation after years of intense growth in the traffic it supports. In that year, the execution of the airport expansion began, in the form of a macroproject known as "Plan Barajas." The plan basically consisted of building a terminal building, a satellite building dependent on the new terminal, two new runways (parallel to those existing at that time), two large platforms around the new terminal buildings, new parking lots and access roads to the airport, burying the M-111 under the runways, an automatic train for the connection between the terminal and the satellite within an airport services tunnel, as well as an automated baggage handling system in the new terminals. Associate carried out the expansion of the airport's power plant, the diversion of the Jarama River, taxiways in the new infrastructure, new aids to air navigation and a new control tower.[19].
New terminal area: It consisted of the construction of the new T4 terminals and its satellite, the T4S, designed by the architects Estudio Lamela[20] and Richard Rogers Partnership (the latter winner of the 2006 Stirling Prize[21] for this project) and the engineers Initec (National Engineering Company) and Carillion (winners of the 2006 IStructE Award for Commercial Structures for this project)[22] was built by Acciona, Dragados,[23] Ferrovial,[24] OHL[25] and Sacyr.[26] It includes an automated baggage handling system, an underground train for the transfer of passengers, luggage and airport equipment between the terminal and its satellite. Terminal 4 has 470,000 m², 38 contact positions and capacity for 35 million passengers per year, while the satellite building has 290,000 m², 26 contact positions and capacity for 15 million passengers per year.[15] Both buildings are 2.5 km apart. On February 4, 2006, terminal 4 was inaugurated by the then President of the Government of Spain José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.[27].
New runways: Two new runways were built parallel to the existing ones, which were called 15L/33R (currently 14L/32R) and 18L/36R, thereby increasing the capacity of the airfield to 120 operations per hour.[15].
In 2002, billing services were inaugurated at the Nuevos Ministerios metro station "Nuevos Ministerios (Metro de Madrid)"),[28] in the heart of the city's financial center (AZCA) and a short distance from the historic center (just a couple of metro stops); This service was closed in 2005.[29] It was a complement to line 8 of the metro "Line 8 (Madrid Metro)"). The new terminals and runways were completed in 2004, but administrative and equipment delays, as well as controversy over the redistribution of the terminals, meant that they did not come into service until February 5, 2006.[30].
In October 2006, the project to build a Renfe Cercanías line that linked the airport with the Chamartín stations and with it the Atocha-Cercanías station was put out to tender with a completion date initially scheduled for 2009 and finally inaugurated in 2011 as Line C-1 "Line C-1 (Cercanías Madrid)").[31].
With this new expansion, Madrid-Barajas reaches a maximum capacity of 70 million passengers per year, an available surface area in terminals of 940,000 m², 104 contact parking positions for aircraft and 21,800 parking spaces.[15] In 2007, the airport crossed the barrier of 50 million passengers who traveled through it. The specific figure was 52,143,275 people.
On December 30, 2006 there was a terrorist attack in Barajas. A van bomb exploded in module D of the T4 parking lot, causing the collapse of said module and innumerable material damage, as well as twenty people injured and two dead, Carlos Alonso Palate and Diego Armando Estacio, both of Ecuadorian origin. The attack was claimed by the terrorist group ETA.
The airport was chosen best airport of the year 2008 by the readers of Condé Nast Traveler magazine[32] On January 9, 2009, the airport had to be closed for 5 hours as a result of the snow that fell that morning.[33] Added to the problems caused by the snow were the labor conflicts of the pilots of the Iberia company "Iberia (airline)") and that of the Aena controllers, causing some chaos for several days in the airport.
On August 1, 2015, the Dubai airline Emirates inaugurated its Dubai-Madrid route with the Airbus A380,[34] being the first time that this aircraft operated in Barajas. Before this, the route was covered by the Boeing 777.[35].
On March 26, 2014, a ministerial order from the Ministry of Public Works was published by which the airport was renamed Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport.[4] The renaming sought to honor Adolfo Suárez, the first president of the government of Spain after the restoration of democracy and recognized as one of the architects of the Transition. Spanish.[36][37][38][39][40][41] died on March 23, 2014, a few days before the decision to change the name.
In addition to having very good connections with almost all Spanish airports, it is the European airport that has the most connections with Latin America, thanks to the fact that Iberia "Iberia (airline)"), the leading company between Europe and Latin America, has made T4 its connection center. The route that connects Madrid-Barajas with the Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport (known as Air Bridge), founded by Iberia "Iberia (airline)") in 1974, is the route between two airports that has the highest number of flights per week in the world,[42] although after the opening in 2008 of the Madrid-Barcelona High Speed Line, traffic has been significantly reduced on this route,[43] the high-speed train accounts for 50% of the total passengers between the two cities.[44].
In 2007 it had a traffic of 52.1 million passengers, making it the fourth in Europe.[45] However, the number of passengers dropped to just over 50 million the following year. The number of passengers has grown significantly since the airport expansion was inaugurated in 2006 and it is worth noting that in 2007 it overtook the Dutch airport of Schiphol (Amsterdam) as the fourth European airport in terms of number of passengers. In 2010 the airport rose again to 50 million passengers.
Until 2010, Aena did not provide disaggregated data on the profit or losses generated by each airport in its network, but according to data provided by Aena itself to a specific sector publication, in 2004 the Ebitda of Madrid-Barajas (including the high air navigation costs inherent to the airport) was 173 million euros, which made it the airport that obtained the highest gross operating margin.[46] However, the airport records net losses, due to the high amount of amortization and capital cost faced by large Spanish airports, historically immersed in a permanent growth crisis.[47] In 2009, both Barajas and El Prat (Barcelona) even recorded operating losses, even without accounting for amortization and depreciation.[48].
The airlines Iberia "Iberia (airline)") have their base of operations at the airport (which is the dominant airline at the airport as it moves almost half of the total passengers), Air Europa, Air Nostrum, Vueling Airlines, EasyJet, Ryanair, Wamos Air, Swiftair and Gestair Cargo. The first three use the airport as a connection center between flights.