It's the original terminal which many of us have been familiar with for years, and it was one of the more comfortable European airports, with nice shopping boulevards and plenty of coffee areas of all kinds.
Now it's a ghost terminal. Since the opening of a brand new Terminal 1 on the other side of the airfield some 18 months ago, it has deteriorated amazingly.
I reckon up to 70 percent of the shops have closed, and most of the coffee shops. The main users of the building seem to be Ryanair's domestic Spanish business (I think the international ones still use Girona as Barcelona) and Aer Lingus in this particular trip's context.
It is now an exceptionally long walk from entering the terminal where the bus drops us off at the check-in end of the B section, to getting through security and then back all the way to the Gate B51, which is where passport control for non-Shengen traffic is squeezed. One self-service coffee and sandwich franchise is all there is after that.
It was an overall depressing experience. Made me wonder if this is the fate for our own Terminal 1 in Dublin?
Already they have closed one of the security areas, at the far end, the Ryanair end if you like. This means the remaining one can get jammers, just like the bad old days.
And with the diminished traffic through the airport now divided between Terminals 1 and 2, how long will it be before many of the (many brand new) shops in the old terminal begin feeling the business pinch?
I suspect there's some tough talking going on about rent reviews.
