16 curiosities about Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport
1. The first flight came from Getafe! That's how it went. On April 30, 1931, the newborn Madrid National Airport received its first plane, which came from the nearby town of Getafe (less than 30 kilometers away). There is no record of how long the journey took. , but it is known that the then superior chief of Aeronautics was on board, Commander Frank.
two. Welcome Mr Marshall. The Civil War paralyzed everything, but in the 1950s the airport was acclimatized to the new commercial demands and in 1950 it opened the symbolic direct line with New York.
3. name changes . Despite being Spanish, the airport has not suffered too many baptisms. In 1965 it would be renamed Madrid-Barajas while in March 2014 the Ministry of Public Works gave it a noble name (because of its extension and its protagonist): Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas . However, for nomenclature purposes, it will remain MAD.
Barajas will always be MAD
Four. The tower that defied Saint Peter . The tower of the popular parish church of San Pedro Apóstol in the town of Barajas had always been the architectural ceiling of this district of Madrid. No one could build over 50 meters high or mislead their storks… until 1998. In this year, the North Tower, the main control tower of the airport, was inaugurated. which, with its 71 meters, surpassed the famous bell tower. However, as it is a necessary good, it is considered a justified exception to the rule, so San Pedro will continue to be the lighthouse of Barajas.
5. of record . Despite the economic crisis, the Madrid-Barajas airport is the fifth in Europe in number of passengers (with 49,653,055 per year) and in number of operations (according to the ACI), only surpassed by London-Heathrow, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt and Amsterdam. In the world list it is ranked number 15.
6. More than JFK . In this list, Madrid-Barajas looks above aerodromes from other cities such as Rome, Shanghai, Singapore, Las Vegas or Istanbul. Nevertheless, the most striking defeated 'opponent' is the mythical JFK of New York , which exceeds by 2 million passengers.
A record airport
7. The door of Latin America. The large numbers of this airport are based on the fact that it is the great gateway to Latin America, concentrating on its runways the largest number of flights to and from this continent of all the world.
8. Be careful you lose. With its 940,000 square meters, Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas is the airport with the largest area in terminals, the largest on the planet . Hence, it is considered a somewhat tiresome airport by users.
9. And also the pilots. But professionals also suffer from its large dimensions. And not just because 18R-36L is the longest civilian runway on Earth but because, being so long, many pilots get confused looking for the assigned gate.
10. There is no scientific data to prove it, but it is very likely that this airport is where the planes do greater wear on their tires rolling until they hit the track.
The first flight arrived from Getafe
eleven. The falcons of Rodríguez de la Fuente . In 1969 the birds began to be a problem as they hampered takeoffs and complicated landings. The most natural (as well as surprising at the time) solution was falconry. The use of trained falcons made it possible to clear the other air traffic from Barajas, a merit attributed to the Spanish media naturalist, master of the first falconers who worked here.
12. Subway connection. Next to London-Heathrow, Barajas is the only aerodrome with more than one metro stop . It is true that its main use is not to interconnect terminals (there is a bus for that), but it does demonstrate –once again- the proportions of this airport. The relationship with the underground was intended to be greater with the baggage terminal opened at Nuevos Ministerios station in 2002 through which luggage could be checked in in the center of Madrid. However, in practice, the terminal was not very useful and ended up being closed in 2005.
13. Barcelona and Paris . Both are the destination and origin cities that move the most passengers in Madrid-Barajas so far in 2014. In terms of airports, London-Heathrow slips into second position (only surpassed by Barcelona). Huesca-Pyrenees airport appears at the bottom of the list as the national destination with the fewest passengers.
T4, an architectural beauty
14. The award-winning terminal . In 2006 the famous T4 was opened, one of the icons of the new Madrid. This building, designed by Richard Rogers and Estudio Lamela, not only considerably expanded the capacity of Madrid-Barajas, but also embellished it proportionally. So much so that in 2006 it won two of the most important architectural awards : the Stirling Prize of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the 'International RIBA European Awards 2006'. In addition, T4 was a definitive push for Rogers to win the Pritzker Prize a year later.
fifteen. The rainbow from south to north. In addition to its wavy shape, the most architecturally striking feature of this new terminal is its colours. Each pillar has a different shade , based on the order of the colors of the rainbow.
16. 'The realist, the coquette and the dreamer' . Art is not only expressed through a spectacular building. In T4, the three creations sculpted by Manolo Valdés located in the check-in hall of the terminal are also surprising . The idea, present since the Rogers and Lamela project was approved, consists of representing three different ladies, each with her own personality. To reinforce its uniqueness, Valdés asked Vargas Llosa to write a text that would define each sculpture. And he did so:
- The realist . "There is only what I step on, look at, feel and touch: the rain that wets us, the dogs that smell us and the rushing passers-by. I hate the lies of unreality. I abide without protesting the tyranny of everything that exists. I only love what possible and I revolt against the spell of illusions. Poor friends, you are afraid of life and that is why you hide among the shrews of fantasies. I know how to live".
- The coquette ."The secret of my happiness? The elusive smile that stirs the hunger for love of travelers, the slight pout that extols the curve of my lips and describes the flashing snow of my teeth. A knee, an instep, the lobe of the ear, the wings of the nose can insinuate beautiful things and fill men with desires. Friends, you only dream, I make dreams".
- The dreamer. "Friends. You envy the luxuries I don't have: the pools of dew and tears where little goldfish caress my feet in the morning and the necklaces of butterflies that flutter around the swan that is my neck at nightfall. They envy the honey that murmuring bees distill in my mouth and the ardent love poems that my sweet lover composes for me and that the songbirds sing in my ears. of Dreams."
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Barajas, the gateway to Latin America