At its meeting today, the Council of Ministers, at the suggestion of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda (Mitma), authorised the tendering of a works contract to expand the Enaire Air Traffic Control Center in Madrid, with an estimated budget of 23.12 million euros (without VAT). The works are expected to last 24 months, with the remodelling completed in 2025.

This tender is part of Enaire's strategy to modernise the Madrid Control Centre complex, which will, as a whole, involve an investment of around 100 million euros between works and state-of-the-art technological equipment.

A new building will be built with a 1,500 m2 air traffic control room, 50% more surface area than the current one, which will allow the next iFOCUCS control stations to be installed and enhance synergy with engineers and technicians.

The project includes the construction of a new building, to be located next to the current one in the Torrejón de Ardoz complex in Madrid, which will house a new 1,500 square-metre control room, 50% larger than the current one, which will allow for a new, more efficient layout of air traffic control positions, in response to traffic forecasts, together with the installation of new work positions as part of a cutting-edge technological upgrade process (Enaire's iFOCUCS project) and greater synergy with engineers, air navigation technicians and operations and management and supervision areas.

The new iFOCUCS air traffic control work station incorporates cutting-edge digital technology and a larger display area for relevant information and new features.

More than 1,000 company professionals are currently working at this location, together with Air Force personnel, the European ESSP and other service companies. Based on the growth in traffic and the activities and services set out in Enaire's 2025 Flight Plan, this number of workers is expected to increase in coming years.

Headquarters of ENAIRE's Central-Northern Region

This Enaire Control Centre in Madrid, where its Central-Northern Region is based, manages 435,000 km2 of airspace in the northern half of the Iberian Peninsula, providing en-route and approach air traffic control services, as well as aerodrome control at nine airports: Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas, Santiago-Rosalía de Castro, Asturias, Seve Ballesteros-Santander, Bilbao, Vitoria, San Sebastián, Logroño and Pamplona.

Communications, navigation and surveillance services are also provided for 19 airports - Cuatro Vientos, Vigo, A Coruña, Burgos, León, Salamanca, Huesca and Zaragoza, together with the previous ones - to support air traffic in all these facilities thanks to 96 air navigation facilities spread throughout the region.

Commitment to energy efficiency

The tender approved today includes measures to improve energy efficiency through the use of renewable energies and geothermal, aerothermal and heat accumulation systems.

The IT equipment rooms, which dissipate a lot of heat, will have a redundant system of highly efficient coolers, in addition to a system consisting of aerothermal heat pumps and a geothermal system, each of them sized for half of the maximum design power.