The Spanish veto to fly to Barcelona from 23 countries

It is currently not possible to fly directly to 23 countries thanks to bilateral agreements that establish Madrid as the priority airport in Spain and explicitly block the possibility of flying to Barcelona. Even though Barcelona complies with all the requirements to become an intercontinental hub thanks to its privileged location in Europe and the Mediterranean.

I was always amazed at how airports of cities such as Manchester fly directly to every corner in the world and wondered why we couldn’t do that from Barcelona, how was that possible? how could Catalans be so short-sighted? Then I found the answer a few months, Spain deliberately bans it.

The successive Spanish governments have done everything at their hands to prevent Barcelona Airport from becoming the intercontinental hub it should be in fear that competition with Madrid would leave Madrid very quickly as the second airport in the Iberian peninsula. They still deny the Catalan government the management of the airport even though it’s been a claim for decades and there’s no reason why the Catalans would not be able to manage it in a better way since they know the needs of our country better than someone sitting in an office in Madrid. Not to speak of the harm that having Iberia being the monopolistic airline for so many decades has caused.

Catalonia needs the best infrastructures right now and for that the Spanish have proven not only incapable of handling the task but also deliberately harmful for Catalonia’s interests. Another reason why it is urgent for Catalonia to become independent.

Note: thanks to George from Barcelona, this article is inspired in one of his blog posts. Also, the original news here in Catalan.