AENA will limit access to Barajas and ask for responsibility from the Madrid City Council
The management entity, Aena, announced it Will limit access to the terminals during certain time slots, allowing only the Passenger entrance with shipping cardThey Companions y Airport workers.
The decision responds to Increase of the homeless people who spend the night in airport structures. According to the estimates of the alternative union, Union Aena/Enaire (ASAE), approximately 500 people sleep every night at Madrid airportbeing mostly immigrants in a vulnerability situation.
Aena declared her concern in an official declaration for this social crisis, underlining it “Airports are not places prepared to live inBut infrastructure exclusively of passage, which in any case have the appropriate conditions to spend the night. “
Conflict between administrations for responsibility
The situation is triggered An institutional comparison between different public administrations. Aena sent a formal requirement to the Madrid City Council to respect her “legal obligations”By saying that he warned both the Consistory and the Madrid community months ago on the increase in people during the night in the structures.
According to the director of the airport, “the performance of the Madrid City Council in recent months has been clearly insufficient”, accusing him “Function function“And to provoke “The homeless people who spend the night at the airport in Bajas.
The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez Almeida, replied to the accusations underlining that The government of Spain intends to be the city council that “between and takes” the homeless. Almeida stressed that these people “They deserve a social action plan Which does not consist only of throwing them out of the deck “, insisting on the fact that the” leadership “corresponds to the central government, although it was willing to collaborate.
For the same lines, the spokesperson for the government of the Madrid community, Miguel Ángel García, indicated that the manager of Pedro Sánchez must stop “throwing balls” with this problemunderlining that he corresponds to Aena to act, with the collaboration of the Municipalities.
The central government He denied that among the homeless people who have sought refuge for Madrid airport there are asylum candidatescontradicting the statements of the autonomous government and the city council. The central executive insists that the competent administration in the care of people in singhogarism is the Madrid City Council.
Also, he underlined it If the Consistor has detected asylum candidates for the airport“This circumstance must be communicated” to make the necessary resources available, a situation that according to the central government has not occurred to date.
The contrast with other airports and the response of Aena
Non -governmental organizations have highlighted the Contrast between the situation in Madrid-Barajas and that of El Prat airport in Barcelonawhere there is a solution for the homeless. These entities attribute the difference to the “political will” of the administrations involved.
In immediate response to the situation, Aena announced that “will strengthen the operating measures at his disposal intensify the Access checks existing with low intensity strips in flight programming “. This measurement intends to prevent the situation from worsening While looking for a definitive solution to the problem.
The humanitarian crisis in Madrid-Barajas airport Shows the need for effective coordination between the different public administrations to solve the problem, in the meantime, Half a thousand homeless people will continue to spend the night in the airport structures.
