Homeless at T3: 'Malaga Airport is a hotel compared to Madrid's Barajas'

As night falls, the terminals become crowded with more than the typical traveller hurriedly dragging a suitcase. For these other 'users' of Malaga Airport the luggage is different and there are bags of food and personal belongings mixed in with bedding, the bulkiest items being the pillows. The number of homeless people sleeping in this place is on the increase, according to comments from shop workers and bar staff, the unions and even those spending the night between the seating where others wait for their flights.

There are no official figures as these are not permanent, but sources report more than 50 people residing at the airport on a more or less regular basis. In any case, the situation is a far cry from what is happening at Barajas Airport in Madrid, where night-time entry to passengers and their families will be restricted from Wednesday 21 May onwards.

Paco and Lola (not their real names), a mother and son aged 50 and 30 respectively, are real pros at living on the streets. They have been homeless for seven years. They speak with the authority of those who have survived a pandemic by wandering around Madrid and got through the historic snowstorm Filomena in 2021 by taking shelter wherever they could.

After spending five months living in the airport facilities of the Spanish capital and almost a month in the Costa del Sol airport, it is clear to them that "Malaga Airport is a hotel compared to Barajas".

They have come to Malaga because of the lack of security at the airport facilities in Madrid. They say that the homeless there sleep with a razorblade under their pillow.

"Here we are very safe. People always help. Quiet, for now." Paco flags up that the current situation in Madrid will mean that those who were sleeping rough there will spread out to other airports once they are prevented from entering.

"More will arrive here from Barajas," he says. He acknowledges just as clearly, with more than a hint of resignation, that "there is no solution" and explains, sitting opposite his mother from whom he has never been separated, that "no matter how many social workers come to help us, if they don't provide resources, it's impossible." Lola insists that "the shelters are full of addicts and people who don't fit in with us."

As we talk further, Paco explains how this social assistance works and adds that, once you have been on the street for more than six years, you are declared as irreconcilably homeless.

"This is our situation. In order to receive care, they force us to have a legal guardian. It is an imposition that we are not willing to accept. I don't fit in a bubble. I'm not an addict. I know what I want and it's not to have a guardian," he says, concluding with a resounding repeat of his earlier statement: "There's no solution."

He regards the alternative of finding a job in his current situation as unfeasible for the time being. "How can I go to work in these conditions? I sit here all day long. I haven't showered for three weeks."

However, he does not give up hope. He declares himself disabled (he has visible injuries to his legs as a result of being run over) and has asked for a place where he can stay for a few months "to get started" and a job adapted to his abilities.

"I'm 30 years old and I don't want to be like this for the rest of my life", he tells us as he sits next to a phone-charging point behind the cafés located between T2 and T3. Behind him is his whole life in a pile of stuff, taking up little more than the space of an airport seat and topped off with a pillow.

It is all they need to just get by after they were given only 48 hours to leave their family home some seven years ago, all done by court order after the death of Lola's father.

So, this woman wanders around with her son with the same, vain hope of getting out of this vicious circle.

"I went to the hospital the other day and when I came back they had removed some charging points," but little else.

They point out that not everyone is in such need. "There are people with a salary who could take a room, but they save it and sleep here. We have no alternative, but there are people who do it to save money or to spend it on other things," she says, adding, "There are more and more of us."

It is barely eight o'clock in the evening and the rough sleepers are spread out over three main locations in the airport. Most wander around the courtyard where the vertical garden is located, from the Arrivals area to the public transport zone.

Some are chatting in a circle and smoking while others rummage through the rubbish seeking a treasured find of a half-smoked cigarette. Others have already gone to sleep, mainly using the enclosed part of the terminal on the side of the same quadrangle, which is the least crowded, next to the chapel.

A luggage rack serves as a discreet screen for a space where, at that hour, there are already several people lying down with blankets and sleeping bags. Right at this point there is a large, uncrowded washroom. A third, smaller group chooses the Departures terminal, especially the one behind the cafés between T2 and T3. Some blend in with the tourists. Others are all too familiar.

"That guy with the blonde hair has been here for the 16 years I've been working in these facilities," says a taxi driver as a homeless man passes by with a heavily-laden cart that contains his entire life. Nearby another homeless man approaches passengers who have just arrived on the Costa del Sol to ask for help. The trolleys loaded with their belongings, blankets, sleeping bags and bags of food give them away.

 Difficult coexistence 

Employees working in nearby bars and shops are witnessing an increase in homeless people seeking shelter next to their places of business. This side-by-side existence can often prove difficult.

They also agree that there are more and more people sleeping rough at the airport, observing that some of them are young people who look ok and they only realise these people are sleeping over once they see them repeatedly over several days.

One shop assistant at the far end of the Arrivals terminal insists that there are some who "pass perfectly well for a tourist. There are all kinds. There are polite ones and then there are others who I have to call out because they start ordering right there and bother the customer. There are also some who steal drinks or food if we're not careful. And there are others who take the opportunity to tell me about their lives, and what a life it can be."

The waitress in a cafeteria located right at the point where many spend the night says, with an eloquent sigh, that "they are not all the same, obviously, some are more polite and others are drunk and steal from us." She adds "when I catch them stealing and tell them to give it back, they say they don't speak Spanish."

The worst is when they assault a customer who doesn't want to give them money or when they don't let them do their job. "Sometimes we can't even clean the place because they don't want to leave, or the bad smell, which drives the customers away. In reality, complaints are rarely lodged because the thefts are of smaller quantities of products."

Around 1am, when the police presence diminishes, is when most of them settle down for the night. As a veteran worker at these facilities (she has been there for seven years), she says that "there are more and more of them, and this year is one of the years I'm seeing the most. When I started, you would come across one, two, three, but not like now." According to her reckoning, there are around 50 rough sleepers spread throughout the airport.

Some only go to the airport to sleep. The rest of the day they take to the streets of Malaga city or nearby Torremolinos to beg for help to eat.

This is the case for María, 48, from Morocco, who says that "never in my life could I have imagined that I would end up sleeping in an airport". She is already lying on a blanket with a makeshift pillow covering her bag in front of the toilets in the busiest area for overnight stays at the airport.

She says, at times unable to contain her emotion, that she has had no choice but to put aside "the problems of a family that wants to impose a life on you that is not yours because of religion or customs." She has very few belongings with her and has been living at the airport for a month now, although she has been homeless since 2022. She can hardly find the words, the ravages of depression are evident. "I have a long history of suffering, I'm severely damaged, mentally and health-wise." Serious conflicts with her family, traditions and religion are very apparent: "I am better off here than with them."

She says that she spent her youth studying thanks to a large inheritance, "to build my future, but people came along who destroyed everything I had done, and they wanted me not to be myself, but only to do what they told me to do, to behave like someone who was not me and to be treated like a work-horse."

But her confession is even more surprising when she says that she studied computer engineering, one of the most sought-after careers. "I didn't imagine I would end up like this." Now she finds herself unable to resume her professional career: "I wish I could work and I wouldn't see myself like this." Nevertheless, she remains hopeful and at the end of the month she has the prospect of receiving social assistance to help her find a room.

Social workers from 'Puerta Única', a social services resource from Malaga city council that attends to these people, confirm that the airport is "just another focal point of attention in the city".

It is a place they visit regularly to inform the homeless of all the services they offer to get them off the streets. They confirm that "the situation in Malaga cannot be extrapolated to that of Madrid" and that the profile of the people who have made the airport their home is very different to that of the Spanish capital. Until the problem is solved, this will continue to be one of the first sights to be seen by tourists as they land on the Costa del Sol.

Ultimately, Aena, which runs Malaga Airport, is majority owned by the state. The government's representative in Malaga, Javier Salas, denied there are as many as 50 sleeping there.

"Our numbers are lower, not even 30, and not all of them at the same time, but some go in the morning, others in the afternoon and others at night," he said. Salas added that his office is "coordinated very well" with Malaga social services and the regional government. "They have them identified and monitored, by name and surname, as well as the problem they have and their needs," Salas explained.

Salas argued that, if there are homeless at the airport, it is due to a lack of space in shelters, a city council responsibility.

Malaga hoteliers' association has spoken out about the potential impact on the tourism industry. Javier Hernández, vice-president urged Aena and the authorities "to come up with a dignified solution for those homeless who are wandering around or living in the airport."