There is already a date for a new protest against Aena and its tourism promotion policy

PalmaPalma will return to the streets against the airport's growth. The Platform against the Airport Expansion has joined the mobilizations called for next September 20th in Barcelona and Ibiza to demand that airport expansion projects and tourism promotion policies, which, according to the entities, fuel the growth of visitor arrivals to the Islands, be stopped.

The protest comes a few weeks before the final approval of theDORA III (2027-2031), the airport regulation document that Aena and the Ministry of Transport must approve before September 30th and which, according to the platform, foresees an investment of 13 billion euros and an increase in the operational capacity of the State's airports.

In the Balearic Islands, the plan foresees a joint investment of about 1,000 million euros. At Palma airport, the planned investment is 622 million euros and, according to the data managed by the platform, the capacity would go from the 33.8 million passengers registered in 2025 to 35.7 million in 2031, an increase of 5.6%.

In Ibiza, the planned investment is 229.7 million and the capacity would go from 9.1 million passengers to 10 million, while in Menorca 170 million would be allocated and it would go from 4.2 million to nearly 4.6 million.

"No more expansions, no more promotions"

With the slogan 'Enough! No more expansions, no more promotions!', the platform considers that Mallorca does not need to increase its airport capacity, but rather initiate a process of degrowth.

The entities recall that it is not the first time that Palma has demonstrated against the growth of the airport and assure that since 2019 there have been more than three mobilizations with this demand. In this sense, they criticize that during the last years the operational capacity of Son Sant Joan has been increased.

The platform also questions the statements made by the president of Aena in Palma, Tomàs Melgar, when he denies that an increase in operational capacity has occurred. The entities assert that it has gone from 29.7 million passengers in 2019 to more than 33.8 million in 2025. Furthermore, they maintain that this summer the operational capacity of 66 flights per hour was exceeded for more than 18 days in the month of August and eight days in September.

Criticism of the Government's tourism promotion

The second major axis of the protest will be tourism promotion. The platform holds Marga Prohens' Government responsible for contributing to the growth of airport activity while publicly defending discourses of tourism containment. The entities cite as an example the opening of new air routes with Canada and Abu Dhabi and the increase in frequencies of other connections during this summer.

According to the data provided by the platform, Palma airport registered 4.6 million passengers in July, 2.2% more than the same month of the previous year. Up to July, Son Sant Joan had accumulated 19.5 million passengers, also 2.2% more than in 2025. The platform considers that these figures contradict the institutional discourse of containment and demands to stop tourism promotion and the opening of new air routes.

Son Bonet

The entities also denounce that the airport project implies the reactivation of the Son Bonet photovoltaic park, an initiative that, according to the platform, regional and local institutions had committed not to recover in this green space.

For the organizers, this project is part of a policy of growth for infrastructure linked to the airport model that they consider incompatible with the need to reduce tourist and environmental pressure on Mallorca. Another point of the protest will be the impact of private jets. The platform calculates that during 2025, 22,996 private planes arrived in the Balearic Islands, 14,268 of which did so at Son Sant Joan, 8,195 in Ibiza, and 796 in Menorca.

According to their estimates, these flights would have generated about 132,000 tons of CO₂, a figure that the organization compares with the average annual emissions of 28,695 citizens of the State. This year, up to August, the platform has counted 17,644 private jets in the Islands: 9,218 in Mallorca, 8,127 in Ibiza, and 801 in Menorca. According to their calculations, they would have generated about 102,000 tons of emissions, equivalent to the average annual emissions of 22,173 people.

In the case of Mallorca, the organization states that one in every 15 flights already corresponds to a private jet. The platform considers that one of the ways to begin limiting airport growth is the approval of the airport co-management law, which has passed the preliminary procedures and will reach Congress.

The entities argue that co-management should allow the institutions of the Islands to have the capacity to intervene in the planning and management of the airports and, especially, to reduce their operational capacity. They also denounce Aena's reluctance towards this initiative and recall that the company has warned that it could challenge it before the Constitutional Court if it is approved. The call is also part of the Stay Grounded week of action in favor of reducing flights and expanding the railway network.

The entities that support the mobilization demand, specifically, to stop the airport expansion and reduce the number of passengers; put an end to tourism promotion and the opening of new routes; eliminate night flights between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.; ban private jets; eliminate subsidies for aviation fuels and equalize their taxation with that of other fuels, and approve the co-management of the airports.

The platform considers that this summer's mobilizations already evidenced the existing unrest in Mallorca and argues that it is now necessary to transfer this demand to the airport sphere as well: stop growth and begin to plan the degrowth of air activity.