Barcelona Airport - Deception once again

These days the proposal of the Spanish government for the management of the Airport of Barcelona is out. Basically it says that Aena – the state owned company that manages all Spanish airports – will be split in two: one devoted to traffic control and another one for airport management. The one about traffic will maintain the same structure as it has now. The one about airport management will let private investors and regional governments to enter up to a 49% (30% for private capital, 19% for regional governments).

This is not good at all. Again, very bad news.

We all know how important infrastructures are in this connected world that we live on. How relevant they are for attracting companies, qualified people, scientists, good professionals and the type of nomadas – Agonouts in Saxenian words that are responsible for much of the new connections.

Everybody understood that years ago, just go to China, Hong-Kong, anywhere … and you can realize the effort, the ambition, and the boldness of the bet … and everybody that knows the airport of Barcelona knows how limited, small, inefficient it is … We had a timid restructuring on ‘92 for the Olympics, but of course nowadays it looks dwarf, full of awful patches everywhere, … and full of this RDA like aesthetic that AENA seems to love and everybody else hates …

This is even more relevant, even more important in a place like Catalonia where tourism is so important.

However, once more we see one more government that is doing what is politically amenable, politically realistic, what fits, instead of what is necessary, what will be good for the country (both Catalonia and Spain and of course Europe). We don’t need politicians that try to be managers, this is the job of civil servants and politicians should not steal their job. We need politicians with ambition that aim to lead a country and not just to (mis) “manage” it !!!