Galician airports: between the three of them, they killed each other

By Álvaro J. Díaz-Mella

A few weeks ago, a friend from Vigo told me that to fly to London or any other usual European destination, he ended up buying his ticket in Porto. “It’s cheaper, there are more departures, and it takes me less time to get to the airport than making connections here.”

Ricardo Mella and Miguel Anxo Bastos, two uncomfortable people from Vigo
Vigo is dying. The city of lights is going out

That conversation sums up an uncomfortable fact: many Galicians, especially from the south, already fly directly from Porto.

More buses depart daily from Vigo to Porto Airport (up to 19 connections) than to Lavacolla Airport in Santiago (only one or two direct flights on many days). The fact speaks for itself.

There are three airports in Galicia (Peinador in Vigo, Lavacolla in Santiago, and Alvedro in A Coruña) that are relatively close to each other, between 80 and 150 kilometers apart. Instead of complementing each other, they have become rivals, spending public resources and competing for routes and passengers.

The same is true of the ports. Instead of building a large, strong, and coordinated Galician Atlantic port, we have spent decades fueling a sterile rivalry between Vigo and A Coruña that only benefits third parties. It's the same old pattern.

In Galicia, misguided strategic decisions are rarely corrected. They accumulate. And their consequences end up shaping the present and the future.

Meanwhile, Porto Airport closed 2025 with almost 17 million passengers, nearly three times more than the three Galician airports combined, which barely reached 5.5 million. After years of subsidies, agreements, and local rivalries, the outcome is clear: Porto has won, and Galicia continues to divide its passengers among three competing airports.

The problem isn't just the outcome. It's also the path taken. For years, we've witnessed a constant competition between administrations to attract routes and airlines. Vigo, Santiago, and La Coruña have often acted more as rivals than as part of a common strategy. Public money is being used to finance internal squabbles while the real competitor grows on the other side of the Miño River.

As Thomas Sowell said, "It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong." Here, it's clear: politicians can maintain three loss-making airports because the money isn't theirs, but everyone's. While they win votes by defending "their" airport, they fuel a competition between Galician cities that shouldn't exist.

If a private company had to design the Galician airport system from scratch today, it is hard to believe that it would choose three airports competing so close together.

Galicia doesn't need three competing airports. It needs one capable of competing.

The most common objection is immediate: what would happen to Vigo and A Coruña then? The answer doesn't have to be abandonment or physical closure. Other airport, logistics, or business uses could be maintained. What should be debated is whether it makes sense to continue supporting three commercial airports competing for the same passengers.

But no president of the Galician Government has been willing to bear the political cost of opening this debate. Neither has the opposition. Everyone knows it exists, but no one wants to pay the political price of addressing it. It's easier to keep subsidizing the unsustainable, since it's not their money.

We Galicians keep going to Porto, resources are dispersed, and Galicia is losing ground in international connectivity. It's not bad luck. It's a lack of vision, territorial selfishness, and a political class that, generation after generation, prefers to fuel local rivalries rather than defend the general interest of Galicia.

Álvaro J. Díaz-Mella
Vigo

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Álvaro J. Díaz-Mella is a happily retired man from Vigo who is already gray-haired and has too many opinions about what he sees in our imperfect society.
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Translation by Elentir. Photo: Raulgvazquez.