Spain · Hospitality
Madrid, Barcelona and Palma handled half of Aena Spain’s September passengers
Aena’s Spanish network recorded 31.67 million passenger movements in September 2026. Madrid-Barajas, Barcelona-El Prat and Palma de Mallorca accounted for 15.93 million, or just over half.
Sources checked
- Madrid-Barajas6,313,660 passengers
- Barcelona-El Prat5,417,608 passengers
- Palma de Mallorca4,197,396 passengers
- Málaga-Costa del Sol2,805,764 passengers
- Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández2,127,532 passengers
- Ibiza1,262,962 passengers
- Gran Canaria1,194,194 passengers
- Valencia1,129,165 passengers
Natural Earth land outlines and dashed land boundaries.
Switch between passenger totals, annual growth and aircraft movements for the eight busiest airports.
Large gateways dominate the passenger count
Madrid handled 6.31 million passengers, Barcelona 5.42 million and Palma 4.20 million. The next five airports also passed one million each. That concentration matters to hotel operators when assessing the scale of a destination’s flight connections. Source 1 Source 2
Growth rates have different starting points
Alicante-Elche grew 11.5% from a year earlier and handled 2.13 million passengers. Burgos grew 300.0% on 76 passengers. Read the passenger count alongside the change to see the scale behind each percentage. Source 1
Operations measure aircraft, passengers measure travellers
Gran Canaria reported 11,350 aircraft movements, more than Ibiza’s 10,487. Ibiza had more passengers. A movement is a take-off or landing and can include aircraft operations with few or zero commercial passengers. Source 1
How the count relates to hotel demand
An airport count includes arriving and departing passengers, residents and visitors, and may count connecting journeys. It measures gateway traffic. Hotel overnight stays and survey estimates of international tourists describe different populations. Source 1 Source 2