Valencia airport secures €400m expansion to handle international surge
Spain's state-owned airport operator Aena will spend €400 million to more than double the size of Valencia's terminal, a move essential to untangle international passenger bottlenecks as part of a wider €13 billion infrastructure push.
Valencia's Manises Airport will undergo a €400 million overhaul between 2027 and 2031, expanding its terminal footprint to accommodate surging international passenger numbers.
The project will see terminal space more than double from 66,000 square metres to 140,000 square metres, while boarding gates will increase from six to 13. For airlines and investors, the investment signals a deliberate shift of capital toward resolving terminal bottlenecks rather than building new runways. Operator Aena has confirmed the existing airfield can handle the increased traffic, making a second runway unnecessary.
Airport director Antonio García Aparicio told Las Provincias that a completely new adjacent building will house all departures infrastructure. "In this expansion, we're moving all the departures subsystems - that is, the entire departures hall, check-in, baggage handling, and passenger screening - to a new building adjacent to the current airport terminal. The remaining portion of the existing building will be used as the boarding area on the first floor and the baggage claim area on the ground floor," he said.
This spatial split is driven by the complexity of non-Schengen traffic, which now accounts for 75 percent of the airport's passengers. "The decision was made to build it from scratch due to the problems caused by flows and mixing of non-Schengen traffic," García Aparicio added. The redesign includes a dedicated non-Schengen boarding area, a direct response to heavy air traffic from the United Kingdom.
Passengers will also benefit from modern screening technology that eliminates the need to remove liquids and laptops from hand luggage. For the regional economy, upgrading the passenger experience is vital to ensuring Valencia can compete for lucrative international tourism and business travel.
The Valencia project is the fourth expansion for an airport that has handled commercial flights since 1934. It forms part of Aena's 2025 commitment to invest nearly €13 billion over five years to modernise infrastructure in the world's second most-visited country. Carriers are already positioning themselves to capture this growing demand, with Ryanair launching a route to Rabat and Finnair adding a first-ever connection to Helsinki this summer.
