Madrid-Barajas Airport (IATA: MAD, ICAO: LEMD) is the main international airport serving the Spanish capital, Madrid. It opened in 1928, and has grown to be one of the most important aviation centers of Europe. The airport derives its the name from the adjacent town of Barajas, which has its own metro station on the same rail line serving the airport. Barajas serves as the gateway to the Iberian peninsula from the rest of Europe and the world, and is a particularly key link between Europe and Latin America. In 2007, more than 52 million[1] passengers used Barajas; it ranks as the world's 10th—and Europe's fourth—busiest airport and the biggest one by terminal area in the world. Barajas is the primary hub and maintenance base for Iberia Spanish Airlines. Consequently, Iberia is responsible for more than 60 percent of Barajas' traffic.[2]
Terminal 4, designed by Antonio Lamela and Richard Rogers (winning team of the 2006 Stirling Prize), and TPS Engineers, (winning team of the 2006 IStructE Award for Commercial Structures)[3] was built by Ferrovial[4] and inaugurated on February 5, 2006. Terminal 4 is one of the world's largest airport terminals in terms of area, with 760,000 square meters (8,180,572 square feet) in separate landside and airside structures. Consisting of a main building, T4 (470,000 square meter), and satellite building, T4S (290,000 square meter), which are separated by approximately 2.5 km. Hong Kong International Airport still holds the title for the world's largest single terminal building (Terminal 1) at 570,000 square meter. The new Terminal 4 is meant to give passengers a stress-free start to their journey. This is managed through careful use of illumination, available by glass panes instead of walls and numerous domes in the roof which allow natural light to pass through. With the new addition, Barajas is designed to handle 70 million passengers annually.
During the construction of Terminal 4, two more runways (15L/33R and 18L/36R) were constructed to aid in the flow of air traffic arriving and departing from Barajas. These runways were officially inaugurated on February 5, 2006 (together with the terminals), but had already been used on several occasions beforehand to test flight and air traffic manoeuvres. Thus, Barajas came to have four runways: two on a north-south axis and parallel to each other (separated by 1.8km) and two on a northwest-southeast axis (and separated by 2.5km). This allowed simultaneous takeoffs and landings into the airport, allowing 120 operations an hour (one takeoff or landing every 30 seconds).
Terminals 1, 2 and 3 are adjacent terminals that are home to SkyTeam and Star Alliance airlines, as well as Air Europa. Terminal 4 is home to Iberia Airlines, its franchise Air Nostrum and all Oneworld partner airlines. Gate numbers are continuous in terminals 1, 2 and 3 (A1 to E89), but are separately numbered in terminal 4.
The Metro (see Metro Line 8), runs to Terminal 2 (from there you can walk to Terminals 1 and 3) and to Terminal 4. The Nuevos Ministerios metro station allowed checking-in[5] right by the AZCA business area in central Madrid, but this convenience has been suspended indefinitely after the building of Terminal 4[6]. In October 2006 a bid was launched for the construction of a Cercanías link between Chamartín train station and Terminal 4. When finished in 2009, a single Cercanías Line will link Madrid Barajas Terminal 4, with Chamartín and Atocha AVE high-speed train stations.[7]
Airlines and destinations
Terminal 4 Satellite Gates
T4 - Upper level to check-in, lower levels to Arrivals and metro station)
Air Comet (Bogotá, Buenos Aires-Ezeiza, Guayaquil, Havana, Lima, London-Gatwick, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Quito, Santiago de Chile, San José de Costa Rica)
Air Europa (International non-Schengen: Budapest, Buenos Aires-Ezeiza, Cancun, Caracas, Havana, Marrakesh, Puerto Plata [begins summer 2008], Prague, Punta Cana, Salvador Bahia, Santo Domingo, Tel Aviv, Tunis)
Air Europa (Domestic and Schengen destinations: Barcelona, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Ibiza, Lanzarote, London, Malaga, Menorca, Milan-Malpensa (operated by Neos), Palma de Mallorca, Paris-Orly, Rome-Fiumicino, Tenerife-North, Tenerife-South, Venice, Vigo)
Iberia and Air Nostrum (Algiers, Alicante, Almeria, Amsterdam, Asturias, Athens, Badajoz, Barcelona, Berlin-Tegel, Bilbao, Bogotá, Bologna, Bordeaux, Boston, Brussels, Bucharest-Otopeni, Buenos Aires-Ezeiza, Cagliari [seasonal], Cairo, Caracas, Casablanca, Catania [seasonal], Chicago-O'Hare, Clermont-Ferrand, Copenhagen, Dakar, Dublin, Dubrovnik [seasonal], Düsseldorf, Florence, Frankfurt, Fuerteventura, Geneva, Gibraltar, Granada, Genoa, Gran Canaria, Guatemala City, Guayaquil, Havana, Hong Kong [begins 2009], Ibiza, Istanbul-Atatürk, Jerez de la Frontera, Johannesburg, Kraków [seasonal; begins 28 July], La Coruña, Lagos, La Rioja, Lanzarote, Leon, Lima, Lisbon, London-Heathrow, Lyon, Malabo, Malaga, Marrakesh, Marseille, Melilla, Menorca, Mexico City, Miami, Milan-Linate, Milan-Malpensa, Montevideo, Montpellier, Moscow-Domodedovo, Mumbai [begins 2009], Munich, Murcia, Nantes, Naples, New York-JFK, New Delhi [begins 2009], Nice, Olbia [seasonal], Oporto, Palma de Mallorca, Oslo, Pamplona, Panama City, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris-Orly, Prague, Quito, Pisa, Rennes, Rio de Janeiro-Galeão, Rome-Fiumicino, San Jose (CR), San Juan, Santo Domingo, Santiago de Chile, Santiago de Compostela, San Sebastian, Santa Cruz de la Palma, Santander, São Paulo-Guarulhos, Sevilla, Stockholm-Arlanda, St. Petersburg, Strasbourg, Tangier, Tel Aviv, Tenerife-North, Tenerife-South, Toulouse, Turin, Valencia, Venice, Vienna, Vigo, Vitoria, Warsaw, Washington-Dulles, Zaragoza, Zurich)
Vueling Airlines (Barcelona, Ibiza, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Lisbon, Malaga, Malta, Menorca, Milan-Malpensa, Naples, Nice, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Rome-Fiumicino, Tenerife-Norte, Venice)
Image captured from inside a recently landed plane, just after explosion
On the morning of December 30, 2006, an explosion took place in the carpark building module D attached to Terminal 4 of Madrid Barajas International Airport in Spain. It was first reported by Time Warner employee Samantha Graham via phone on CNN around 8:34 GMT. Reuters also distributed a wire story on the event, but with sparse details. The article stated that a bomb threat was phoned in at approximately 8:15 local time (7:15 GMT), with the caller stating that a bomb would explode at 9:00 local time (8:00 GMT).[8] After receipt of the warning, police were able to evacuate part of the airport.[9] Responsibility for the explosion has since been claimed by an anonymous caller claiming to represent ETA.[10]
As a result of the explosion, two Ecuadorians who were sleeping in their cars died. The whole module D of the carpark was levelled to the ground, around 40,000 tonnes of debris. It took six days to recover the body of the second victim from the rubble.