Airport Name and ICAO/IATA Code
Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas (ICAO: LEMD/ IATA: MAD)
Location (City, Country)
Madrid, Spain
Airport Type & Size
Intercontinental airport, with 4 runways with parallel operations
Why should this airport be added to World of Airports?
The main hub for Spain’s biggest home carrier Iberia and the main gateway to Latin America with a diverse amount of airlines operating at the airport, from South American carriers to Chinese ones
Major Airlines & Routes
Iberia, Air Europa to Latin American destinations. For Europe, Ryanair, and Iberia Express being the major airlines operating to European destinations. For regional flights, Iberia Regional offers a wide variety of destinations and Binter as a gateway to the Canary Islands.
Unique Features or Challenges
A complex taxiway layout, allowing the players to adjust the taxiway path for the airplanes at their liking when the feature comes to the game!
4 runways that allows for dual landings and takeoffs, first time in the game!
Terminal 4’s unique design is one of the more iconic designs of all the airports around the world.
It’s sad that MAD didn’t gain much traction. I think it would be the perfect addition to the game. While 4 runways were previously taken cautiously by the devs due the performance, the ones in MAD are completely independent from one another. No need for runway crossings or dependent operations. While it has a lot of stands and many of them are shared, I don’t think it would be too many to break the game (although reading through the taxi instructions broke me inside).
When it comes to location, it’s far enough from other European airports that are currently in the game. It has many interesting routes IRL especially to Latin America which was the recent focus on the game. While I would enjoy playing African airports like Cairo (and definitely understand the urgency to add them), I think that MAD could be a great addition in the near future. The potential for both airline and player contracts would be fantastic with two long-haul home carriers, a big ULCC presence and several interesting IRL airlines.
I noticed a constant debate on this forum between small and large airports. While I enjoy playing INN or SXM time-to-time and my favourite is SCL, I’m generally more in favour of larger ones. I think that MAD with many 80+ levels (like IAD) would increase the enjoyment of the game for us who prefer larger ones until either a new airport like ICN is feasible or for example BKK gets expanded with the just-proposed South Terminal and Eastern expansion (although if IRL mixed stands would be added, that would be great but this is going off-topic).
However, one drawback would be the long taxi times. Any ops to or from T1/2/3 are so tiring in real life, taking 15ish minutes before take-off or after landing. Although I think that would be a problem at any large airpors.
Overall, I hope MAD would be added soon. And thank you to the devs for their hard work, WOA is a fantastic game. I’ve been here since V1, often monitoring the forum but this is my first reply.
I must say that I agree with much of that, what you said, but you can still be aware that there are a lot of airports similar to MAD and that they also have a lot of pluses and minuses. My favorite is Istanbul Havalimani, which doesn’t get much attention, which is a bit disappointing, but it’s still a very large airport that plays a very important role in the world. I have to admit that I would like both airports in the game, including the Cairo airport that you already mentioned.
Airport Name and ICAO/IATA Code
Location (City, Country)
Airport Type & Size
Why should this airport be added to World of Airports?
Major Airlines & Routes
Unique Features or Challenges
Optional: Links, images, maps, or videos
