Friday, 19 September 2025, 16:12
The much-needed expansion of Malaga Airport is already under way, at least in terms of planning. The project took off this past July, when Spanish airport operator Aena approved the tender to contract the aeronautical consultancy firms, which will be responsible for drawing up the terminal refurbishment projects with an estimated cost of more than 36.5 million euros.
This ambitious plan has now taken another fundamental step towards becoming a reality in the medium term. Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez and minister of transport Óscar Puente have presented the official document that regulates the growth and development of Spain’s airports (Dora III) in Alicante. The document establishes the investments to be made in the period from 2027 to 2031, when the first improvements – capacity increase – will start to take shape in Malaga.
Dora III involves a global investment in the Aena network (comprising 46 airports and two heliports) of almost 12.9 billion euros, of which approximately 10 billion correspond to regulated investments, while the rest will be allocated to non-regulated investments (associated with commercial activity). “It is the largest investment in recent decades,” Pedro Sánchez said. Of this figure, 1.5 billion will go to technological, innovation and environmental sustainability projects, from which Malaga Airport will also benefit.
1.5
billion euros is the investment that Aena has estimated to guarantee the capacity of Malaga Airport over the next decade.
Aena has not disclosed the specific figures allocated to Malaga Airport for this first phase, but it has assured that this infrastructure will receive “the investments needed to meet all the requirements of capacity, safety, quality and environmental sustainability”. In addition, the airport operator is committed to starting up the most significant actions in the five-year period (2027-2031). The total investment amounts to 1.5 billion euros, as announced by Óscar Puente at a recent forum organised by SUR.
Central government’s representative in Malaga – Javier Salas – subsequently stated that Malaga Airport will be “the Andalusian airport that receives the greatest investment”.
First investments
The presentation of Dora III outlines some of the most significant actions that are to be carried out to increase Malaga Airport’s capacity. Firstly, the security control will be improved and equipped with modern scanner machines that will allow passengers to pass through security control without removing liquids or electronic devices from their suitcases. In addition, passport control will be expanded, both in terms of surface area and services.
Above all, the investments included in the Dora will be used to draw up the construction projects, put the work out to tender and start the first actions on the ground, foreseeably in the last quarter of 2028. This was announced by director of Malaga Airport himself Pedro Bendala in a recent interview with SUR.
The most significant improvements will take place during later phases. Following the approval of the Dora IV, the first phase of the major reform will be carried out between 2031 and 2032: the construction of a new boarding pier for non-Schengen traffic and the extension of security and passport controls. In 2033-2034, piers B and C will be demolished and the Schengen areas will be extended to the south. The surface area will be expanded by 45%.
1.5 billion over five years
The investment necessary to give shape to the new Malaga Airport (the aforementioned 1.5 billion euros) will be gradually injected over a period of five years, which will mean an expenditure of almost one million euros per day. In this way, the surface area will almost double from the current 80,000 square metres to some 140,000 square metres.
Starting at the end of 2028, the reform will be carried out over a period of eight years. The expansion plan has three axes: the most urgent is to increase capacity to more than 36 million passengers (it is now 30 million). But these 36 million passengers are only a first phase. “With the number of boarding gates or the square metres of boarding lounges planned, the capacity should be much more than 36 million,” Bendala said.
The other two phases are to improve sustainability through the use of new technologies that reduce the carbon footprint and water consumption, among other tasks. Last but not least, Malaga Airport has the ambition of becoming a benchmark in global accessibility for all types of passengers.
The plan will be divided into four or five gradual phases. The aim is to ensure that the airport’s facilities remain operational at all times during the construction work. One of the phases will be to build the new boarding pier for non-Schengen traffic, followed by the reconversion of the old B and C piers (where the boarding gates for non-Schengen destinations are now located), which will be demolished. This will be followed by the extension to the south of the current Terminal 2, to enlarge the processing hall, which is the large building where the security controls are located, and the extension to the east to increase its volume.
Óscar Puente: ‘A big wave of investment for airports approaching maximum capacity’
Minister of transport Óscar Puente has justified the planned investment in Dora III, which will amount to almost 13 billion euros. “A new great wave of investment by Aena is necessary in all those airports that are approaching their maximum theoretical capacity,” he stated. Malaga Airport is one of those facilities.
“It is very likely that 2025 will mark a traffic record, exceeding 320 million passengers,” added the minister. For this reason, Puente is committed to ensuring that Aena receives the necessary investment to meet all the requirements of capacity, safety, quality and environmental sustainability, as well as adapting the infrastructures to the growth in demand.
In the 2027-2031 period, investments will be mainly dedicated to actions in terminal areas and airfields, information technologies, digitalisation and innovation, promotion of environmental sustainability, the latter aimed at achieving the goal of zero net emissions by 2030.
The investment in Dora III is also substantially higher than those of the previous two periods. In Dora I (2017-2021), Aena invested 2.6 billion, followed by 3.5 billion invested in the current Dora II (2022-2026).