One of Spain’s busiest airports is about to get a major upgrade thanks to an eyewatering €1.5 billion (£1.3 billion) expansion plan. Once the upgrades are complete, passengers travelling through Malaga Airport – a gateway for holidaymakers in the Costa del Sol and the rest of Andalusia – will no longer need to remove liquids or laptops from their bags.
The project, approved under the government’s DORA III programme, will introduce state-of-the-art security scanners designed to speed up checks and improve passenger comfort. Passport control areas will also be expanded, both in space and capacity, to handle more travellers efficiently. Malaga Airport is Spain’s fourth busiest airport after the likes of Madrid and Barcelona, handling a record-breaking 24.9 million passengers and nearly six million checked-in bags last year – a 11.5% increase compared to 2023.
The major investment forms part of a wider modernisation plan by Spanish airport operator Aena, which will spend €12.8 billion (£11.2 billion) between 2027 and 2031 across Spain’s network of 49 airports and two heliports.
Malaga is set to receive a large share of this money, with the upgrades aimed at boosting its capacity to more than 36 million passengers a year and becoming one of the most modern airports in Europe.
Airport director Pedro Bendala confirmed that construction work is expected to begin in late 2028, with the expansion divided into several phases to keep the airport running during the upgrades.
The first phase will focus on increasing space in the terminal buildings and improving systems including check-in, baggage claim and boarding gates. Later stages include a new boarding pier for non-Schengen flights and the demolition and replacement of older boarding areas.
By 2034, the airport’s surface area is set to grow from over 860,000 square feet to a whopping 1.5 million square feet – almost doubling in size.
The project will also invest in sustainability measures, such as reducing carbon emissions and water consumption, and improving accessibility for all passengers.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez described the expansion as “the biggest investment in airports in decades” when presenting the plan this week in Alicante.
This news comes as another airport, due to open next year, is set to become its country’s largest airport and one of the biggest in the world.
After years of construction, Vietnam’s Long Thanh International Airport aims to open its doors in 2026. The new building is located on 5,000 hectares of land in Long Thanh, and is aiming to eventually welcome as many as 100 million passengers a year.
This puts it on par with huge airports in Dubai and Dallas. The airport is set to have three terminals and four runways, at a total cost of VND336 trillion (£9.5 billion).
