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Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport, known to pilots by its ICAO code LEBL, is the principal gateway to Catalonia and Spain's second-busiest airport, lying on the coastal plain southwest of Barcelona city centre. For the simulator pilot it offers a demanding, high-traffic environment with parallel and crossing runways, full ILS coverage and a rich century of aviation history stretching back to the earliest days of Spanish commercial flying.
LEBL sits on Spain's Mediterranean coast and serves as the main airport for Barcelona and the wider Catalan region. Operated by Aena, it is a hub for Vueling and Level and a focus city for Air Europa, Iberia, EasyJet and Ryanair, making it one of the busiest and most complex airports in the country. Its combination of three physical runways, dense scheduled traffic and long aviation pedigree makes it a rewarding and challenging destination for simulator pilots flying airline or general aviation types into a major European hub.
The airport lies in the municipalities of El Prat de Llobregat, Viladecans and Sant Boi, about 15 kilometres southwest of the centre of Barcelona, on the coastal plain at the mouth of the Llobregat river. It sits within the Barcelona terminal area, handled by approach control on 119.1 MHz, and is one of the busiest and most heavily controlled aerodromes in Spain.
The airport has three physical runway pairs, all hard-surfaced and lit. Runway 06L/24R is the longest, at 9,959 ft in the 06L direction and 11,416 ft in the 24R direction, and is equipped with ILS. Runway 06R/24L runs 8,889 ft as 06R and 8,829 ft as 24L, also with ILS on both ends. Runway 02/20 is 8,354 ft as 02, with ILS, and 8,399 ft as 20 without an instrument approach. Field elevation is 7 ft.
Barcelona Approach operates on 119.1 MHz, with the airport ATIS broadcast on 118.65 MHz. Clearance delivery/CLD is on 121.8 MHz, Ground on 121.65 MHz, and Tower on 118.1 MHz. Full ILS approaches are available on runways 06L, 06R, 24L, 24R and 02, giving instrument access to five of the six runway directions.
Barcelona's first airfield was at El Remolar, beginning operations in 1916, but with poor prospects for expansion a new airport opened at El Prat in 1918; the first aircraft to arrive was a Latécoère Salmson 300 flying from Toulouse en route to Casablanca. The airfield served as headquarters of the Aeroclub of Catalonia and as a base for the Spanish Navy's Zeppelin fleet. Scheduled commercial service began in 1927 with an Iberia flight to Madrid Cuatro Vientos, the airline's first ever route, and during the Second Spanish Republic El Prat was a base for LAPE, the state postal airline. A runway now known as 07-25 was built in 1948, the same year Pan American World Airways began the first transatlantic service to New York using a Lockheed Constellation. A second, perpendicular runway (16-34) followed between 1948 and 1952, along with new taxiways and a passenger terminal. The airport passed one million passengers a year by 1963, gained a new control tower in 1965, and opened a new terminal in 1968 that survives today as Terminal 2B. Pan Am inaugurated a Barcelona-Lisbon-New York Boeing 747 service in 1970, and in November of that year Iberia launched its Barcelona-Madrid air shuttle, the 'Pont Aeri' or 'Puente Aéreo', which by 2007 was the world's busiest air route with 971 weekly operations before high-speed rail reduced demand from 2008. A dedicated shuttle terminal and cargo facilities were added in 1976, and the airport passed five million annual passengers in 1977. Growth stalled through the late 1970s and 1980s until a major redevelopment ahead of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics modernised the existing terminal, by then Terminal B, and added flanking Terminals A and C. A new Terminal 1, covering 545,000 square metres and now handling around 70 percent of flights, opened in June 2009. In February 2014 Barcelona became the first Spanish airport to receive a daily Airbus A380 service, operated by Emirates to Dubai, and International Airlines Group launched its long-haul low-cost carrier Level from Barcelona from 2017. The airport's name was changed to Barcelona-El Prat in 2011 at the request of the local town council, and to its current form, Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat, in March 2019 in honour of the first president of the Generalitat de Catalunya under the current Spanish Constitution, a renaming that was criticised by the Generalitat and Catalan separatists for proceeding without consultation.
Today the airport is the second-largest in Spain after Madrid-Barajas and the principal airport of Catalonia and the Mediterranean coast, ranking among the busiest in Europe. It operates as a hub for Vueling and Level, and as a focus city for Air Europa, Iberia, EasyJet and Ryanair, with around 100 airlines serving the field. It has received Airports Council International recognition for passenger experience in recent years.
