The name change of the Madrid-Barajas Airport into the Adolfo Suarez Airport of Madrid-Barajas will cost between half a million and a million euros, and it will be done gradually, according to the president of AENA, Jose Manuel Vargas, after attending the 'Passenger Terminal Expo 2014' conference in Barcelona.
AENA is already working on the development of a calendar to keep on changing to the new official name of the capital's airport “little by little,” once it's published in the BOE, which will implicate the modification of different aspects, like boards and labeling.
The first step will be the placement of a plaque in the building. On their website, the airport manager is already referring to the network's main airport as Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas.
“An airport has its name seen in many places and there will be things that are changed immediately and others that will go through a longer process regarding what needs to happen to keep on adapting the name,” explained Vargas.
“We are aware of the associated costs, but we will attempt to make them as low as possible,” confirmed Vargas.
The idea the capital's airport will carry the name of the first democratic president after Franco's dictatorship as an acknowledgment to him is not new since it was started five years ago through the PP's initiative.
Other infrastructures like it have also modified their names, like New York's John F. Kennedy Airport or Charles de Gaulle in Paris.
One of the Main Airports of the World
The Madrid-Barajas Airport, which celebrated its 80th anniversary in 2013, was at first called 'Madrid National Airport' and was built to replace the Alcala, Carabanchel, and Getafe Airfields.
Although the official inauguration was completed on April 30, 1931, regular commercial operations took two more years to begin because opening it to civil commercial traffic, done by ministry order on April 24, 1933, did not take effect until three weeks later on May 15.
On May 15, 1933, a tri-motor Fokker VII landed at the Madrid Airport, the first time that Barajas was open to civil commercial traffic.
It was not until 1965 that it took the name Madrid-Barajas Airport because it was located in the municipal district of the same name. The first regular lines from Barajas were with LAPE — a company that later on would turn into Iberia — and they had two destinations: Barcelona and Seville.
After more than 990 million passengers on almost 10.65 million flights, the Madrid-Barajas Airport has turned into one of the main airports of the world in terms of passenger and aircraft traffic, while it provides service to more than 45 million travelers every year.
Today, around 80 air travel companies fly regularly to 179 destinations in 65 countries on 4 continents from Madrid's airport.