You might think that Germany is the European Union's biggest aviation market. Not so! It's Spain that holds the spotlight. According to the Aena group, the Spanish airport authority which manages all the country's airports, all the airport hubs closed 2025 with 321,587,316 passengers. This represents an increase of 3.9 % compared with 2024. Aena's 48 airports and heliports also set a record for the number of aircraft movements, with 2,696,414 (+4.1 %).
In detail, the Iberia and IAG hub in Madrid continues to assert itself as one of Europe's most important airports. Madrid-Barajas has set a traffic record for 2025, with 68.18 million passengers, an increase of 3 % compared with 2024. Barcelona is also beating all records for passenger numbers. The Catalan hub recorded 57.48 million passengers (+4.4 %), while Palma de Mallorca, in third place, saw less growth. With passenger numbers up by 1.51 % in 2025, the hub nevertheless welcomed 33.81 million passengers.
The biggest increases in traffic were recorded in Valencia (11.84 million passengers, +9.6 %), Alicante (19.95 million passengers, +8.5 %) and Malaga (26.76 million passengers, +7.4 %), Malaga-Costa del Sol with 26,760,549 (+7,4 %), Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández with 19,950,394 (+8.5 %), Gran Canaria with 15,826,553 (+4 %), Tenerife Sud with 13,969,678 (+1.7 %) and Valencia with 11,847,527 passengers, an increase of 9.6 %. With an increase of 5.6 %, Seville airport is closing in on the 10 million passenger mark. The Andalusian capital welcomed a total of 9.69 million passengers in 2025.
Aena is in the final stages of evaluating its investment plans for Spanish airports over the next few years. The Spanish group's objective is to guarantee the necessary capacity for optimal operations. The record traffic levels achieved in recent years clearly underline the need to anticipate traffic growth even further by adapting infrastructure, in particular through terminal extensions. Some €13 billion is earmarked in the investment plan for the period 2027-2031.
