Palma de Mallorca Airport
Facts on PMI
Commercial aviation reached Mallorca in 1921, when Aeromarítima Mallorquina began a postal seaplane route from Barcelona that landed in the port of Palma — decades before today's airport existed.
Source: Wikipedia
The airport's historic name, Son Sant Joan, follows a naming pattern used all over Mallorca for old rural estates: "son" is a contraction of the Catalan "ço d'en" ("the property of"), a formula that began replacing the island's Arabic-era farm names in the 15th century and was normally followed by the owner's name -- in this case, Joan. The airport's full official name is still "Aeropuerto de Palma de Mallorca - Son Sant Joan."
Palma's airport opened to domestic and international traffic on 7 July 1960 at Son Sant Joan, after Spain's 1958 National Airport Plan decided the site would replace the smaller Son Bonet as Mallorca's main civil airport.
Source: Wikipedia
In 2024, Palma de Mallorca Airport handled 33.3 million passengers, making it Spain's third-busiest airport after Madrid-Barajas and Barcelona-El Prat, and the 14th-busiest in Europe.
Source: Wikipedia
The airport shares its runways with the adjacent Son Sant Joan Air Force Base, operated by the Spanish Air and Space Force, a military presence dating back to before the civil airport was built there.
Source: Wikipedia
The current central terminal, opened in 1997, was designed by Majorcan architect Pere Nicolau Bover; construction began in 1993, and passenger numbers had already passed 15 million a year before the building was finished.
Source: Wikipedia
In June 2024, sudden torrential rains flooded Palma de Mallorca Airport, damaging both the runways and the terminal building and forcing a shutdown that caused widespread delays across the network.
Source: Wikipedia
Palma de Mallorca Airport serves as the main operating base for the Spanish carrier Air Europa, and as a focus airport for Eurowings, easyJet, Jet2.com, Ryanair and Vueling.
Source: Wikipedia
In 1954 the runway at Son Sant Joan was enlarged and paved to handle F-86 Sabre fighter jets, a project that required diverting the Palma–Llucmajor road around the expanded airfield.
Source: Wikipedia