What is BARDC?
The Barcelona Air Route Development Committee (BARDC) was created at the beginning of 2005 by Aena (Spanish Airports Authority), the Catalan Autonomous Government (Generalitat), the Barcelona City Council and the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce in order to promote the development of new intercontinental routes from Barcelona Airport.
The members
The BARDC is made up of four members:
- Generalitat de Catalonia (Regional Government of Catalonia) - Town and Country Planning and Sustainability. This department is own by Generalitat de Catalonia with authority over transportation in the territory of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia.
- Barcelona City Council – Economic Promotion: is the instrument that the Barcelona City Council uses to stimulate the city’s economic development.
- Barcelona Chamber of Commerce: its main function is to defend the general interests of businesses and to provide the necessary actions to promote trade and industry.
- AENA (Spanish Airports and Aerial Navigation): is the public company in charge of the civil aerial navigation and civil airports in Spain. Therefore, AENA runs the Barcelona airport.
Objectives
The BARDC was set up because of a desire from the business and civil community, from local authorities and from the airport itself to develop a network of international flights more in line with the needs and with the true potential of Barcelona.
In this regard, the BARDC becomes an instrument for coordinating Catalan institutions and is a contact point for the national and international airlines that are interested in operating out of the Barcelona airport.
The BARDC’s main objective is to work to secure new intercontinental air connections from Barcelona Airport and to increase frequencies on existing ones.
With this in mind, and through its work, the BARDC aims to:
- Promote the mobility of people who live and work in Catalonia in an increasingly globalised society.
- Help provide more opportunities by means of opening up new markets for Catalan companies, avoiding stopovers in other airports and losing time waiting for connections.
- Offer overseas companies with an interest in doing business or in setting up in Catalonia a wide range of national, European and intercontinental air links.
- Make Barcelona and Catalonia more appealing as quality tourist destinations, facilitating access to markets in more distant countries that are the starting point for overseas travel.
- Attract large international events: tradeshows, conferences and other more general events.
- Facilitate the transportation of merchandise by air, allowing companies to access markets that are further afield more quickly.
