Authorities Intervene Over Homeless Surge At Barajas Airport
The number of homeless people at Madrid´s Barajas Airport has surged to become a full-blown crisis with airport and emergency authorities unable struggling to stop the flow of new arrivals.
The Spanish airport authority, AENA and the Madrid City Council have agreed to introduce restrictions of access during certain hours of the day as a precautionary step aimed at preventing more homeless people from taking shelter in the terminals.
During these designated hours – and when flight activity is minimal – entry will be limited to only passengers with boarding passes, airport staff, and people accompanying ticketed travellers.
Although AENA confirmed that the new access rules will come into effect in the coming days, it did not provide an exact start date or specify the time periods during which the restrictions will apply.
In recent months, Madrid’s airport has become an informal refuge, with homeless people setting up temporary encampments inside some terminals. Sleeping bags and makeshift bedding have appeared near restrooms and along terminal walls, with reports from local media estimating the number of individuals to be in the hundreds.
Barajas is the busiest airport in Spain with some 94 million passengers.
AENA stated earlier this week that it had reached out to Madrid city authorities for assistance in addressing the issue several months ago, but said that the response so far has fallen short.
‘Airports are not places designed for living in, but rather are infrastructure solely for transit, which in no case offers adequate conditions for overnight stays,’ the airport authority said in a statement on the crisis.
With the summer travel season approaching, responsibility for the situation has been mired in political wrangling between different levels of government, resulting in little progress.
