Spain’s largest airport is stepping up security after a rise in rough sleepers using its terminals overnight.
AENA informed staff on 18 January that, starting Wednesday, Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas will restrict entry between 21:00 and 05:00 to passengers and their immediate companions. Additional private-security agents—22 in total—will validate boarding passes at main doors and call the National Police if non-travellers refuse to leave.
The operator stresses that the measure is not a full closure; flights, landside services and connecting-passenger flows will run as normal. Union UGT, however, questions the legal basis of private guards controlling access to a public facility and hints at a possible complaint to the Interior Ministry’s Private-Security Unit.
![Madrid-Barajas to tighten night-time access, limiting terminals to ticketed passengers]()
For business travellers the immediate impact is procedural. Late-evening departures or early-morning arrivals will require proof of travel to enter the building, and ‘meeters & greeters’ may be asked to wait outside. Global-mobility managers should advise relocating staff—especially those with large baggage or families—to allow extra curb-side time until the policy beds in.
Travellers who still need to organise entry documentation before arriving in Spain can streamline the process through VisaHQ, which offers online visa and travel-authorisation services with real-time updates on requirements. The platform’s Spain page (https://www.visahq.com/spain/) lets corporate mobility teams or individual flyers complete applications and track status, helping cut down on last-minute surprises at the terminal doors.
The episode also highlights wider social-policy gaps. NGOs say chronic housing shortages in Madrid have pushed more homeless people to seek shelter in transport hubs; airlines counter that unattended sleepers create safety risks and complicate Schengen-border integrity. Whether Barajas becomes a test case for similar restrictions at Barcelona El Prat or Málaga-Costa del Sol will depend on how effectively the midnight checks balance humanitarian concerns with operational security.
AENA informed staff on 18 January that, starting Wednesday, Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas will restrict entry between 21:00 and 05:00 to passengers and their immediate companions. Additional private-security agents—22 in total—will validate boarding passes at main doors and call the National Police if non-travellers refuse to leave.
The operator stresses that the measure is not a full closure; flights, landside services and connecting-passenger flows will run as normal. Union UGT, however, questions the legal basis of private guards controlling access to a public facility and hints at a possible complaint to the Interior Ministry’s Private-Security Unit.
For business travellers the immediate impact is procedural. Late-evening departures or early-morning arrivals will require proof of travel to enter the building, and ‘meeters & greeters’ may be asked to wait outside. Global-mobility managers should advise relocating staff—especially those with large baggage or families—to allow extra curb-side time until the policy beds in.
Travellers who still need to organise entry documentation before arriving in Spain can streamline the process through VisaHQ, which offers online visa and travel-authorisation services with real-time updates on requirements. The platform’s Spain page (https://www.visahq.com/spain/) lets corporate mobility teams or individual flyers complete applications and track status, helping cut down on last-minute surprises at the terminal doors.
The episode also highlights wider social-policy gaps. NGOs say chronic housing shortages in Madrid have pushed more homeless people to seek shelter in transport hubs; airlines counter that unattended sleepers create safety risks and complicate Schengen-border integrity. Whether Barajas becomes a test case for similar restrictions at Barcelona El Prat or Málaga-Costa del Sol will depend on how effectively the midnight checks balance humanitarian concerns with operational security.
