The King and Queen of Spain open Malaga airport’s new Terminal 3

ACCIONA Infrastructure built the car park, provisional accesses and the bus station, at an investment of 102,8 million euros.

The King and Queen of Spain today officially opened Malaga (Spain) airport's new Terminal 3, designed by architect Bruce S. Fairbanks The ceremony was attended by the Spanish Minister of Development, Jose Blanco, and the President of the Regional Government of Andalusia, José Antonio Griñán, among other dignitaries.

ACCIONA Infrastructure took part in the project with the construction of the P-1 car park, the bus station, the tunnel joining the airport roads, the transit footbridges and the new airport access roads. Construction work lasted 61 months, at an investment of 102,8 million euros.

The 7-level parking facilities for 2,500 vehicles comprise two basement floors, a ground floor and four upper floors, and is connected to Terminal 1, the railway station and the footbridge connecting with the new building.

The 29,000 metre bus station, located beneath the processing building, has two vehicle access points at the North and South ends of the bus station. The main pedestrian access is via the central area.

The connecting tunnel is a provisional access connecting the arrivals and departure areas and the accesses to the car park levels; it will function as such until works on the South access - which will involve running a stretch of railway line underground - are completed. The work carried out by ACCIONA Infrastructure also includes the construction of a 485 metre footbridge connecting the car park buildings with the new terminal area. The footbridge will have mechanical walkways to make transit easier.

ACCIONA Infrastructure is also carrying out work on the expansion of the airfield. A second runway currently under construction will have three rapid exit runways for header 12, at 1,360; 1,800 and 2,175 metres threshold. A new taxiway parallel to the second runway will link up with the new aircraft apron and a new building for the airport's fire-fighting service.

Reuse of soil from excavation on the airfield

In line with ACCIONA Infrastructure's commitment to sustainable development, as part of the works on the expansion of the airfield the company developed and successfully applied an innovative technology for reusing mud-type soil from the excavation of the screen walls.

This way, soil from excavation was not sent to a landfill; instead it was reused for building embankments at several points at the airport and for reducing the landfill's environmental impact. Reusing soil in this way also contributed to keeping down disruption to traffic in the area surrounding the works and generated less carbon emissions by reducing the number of trucks transporting soil to the landfill and back.

This technology is a first in Spain and comes as an important breakthrough in terms of protecting the environment. Thanks to this innovative method 100,000 cubic metres of mud-type soil from the excavation of screen-walls, and usually disposed of as waste, were transformed into a valuable material for building embankments at Malaga airport's airfield.