Airports without limits in islands that have already reached their peak
The expansion works at Palma Airport are no secret. Aena can't hide them, because they are visible, noisy, and, for many passengers, increasingly burdensome. Anyone who has recently passed through Son Sant Joan Airport has seen how journeys are lengthening and how the comfort promised by the airport operator is being postponed to an uncertain future. Aena cannot hide the construction. What it does try to conceal is the objective that seems to lie behind these works. The airport company insists that the expansion is not motivated by a desire to accommodate more passengers. But the figures contradict this. A report by Aena itself, prepared less than five years ago, predicted that in the most extreme scenario, Son Sant Joan would reach 33 million passengers in 2026. Reality has accelerated the timeline: in 2025, a year earlier, Palma Airport had already significantly exceeded this figure. Denying that the expansion is due to an increase in capacity is, at the very least, implausible.
If we look at all the airports in the Balearic Islands, the picture is just as, if not more, striking. Last year, over 47 million passengers were handled. These figures should have long ago triggered urgent measures stemming from the debate about the limits of the archipelago's territory, resources, and infrastructure. These limits are a central topic of discussion, a debate that, in reality, is already taking place in the public sphere. For years, a significant portion of the population has known that the ceiling has been reached and that degrowth is not an ideological provocation.
However, while the public discourse points to these limits, the infrastructure continues to grow. Aena is expanding, and it's hard to believe that it's doing so to provide more space for everyone to travel. The most plausible explanation is that it's to increase capacity and, therefore, revenue. It's worth remembering a key detail: Aena is 51% publicly owned. The State is the main shareholder. And while it promotes declarations of stress zones and environmental policies, it remains silent when it comes to the Balearic airports and allows Aena to rake in profits at the expense of an already exhausted territory.
The size and traffic of our airports have for years not responded to the capacity of the Islands, but rather to the existing demand. For the experts consulted by ARA Baleares to speak of a horizon of more than 50 million passengers is to point to an absolute absurdity. But, meanwhile, the entry and exit points are widened, new air routes are opened, the Islands are sold at tourism fairs, and nobody sets clear limits: not on residents, not on tourists, not on construction, not on cars. This is like someone who knows perfectly well that they should lose weight for their health, but who eats more every day. And still wonders why they aren't getting better.
