Arrivals
Barajas brings arrivals out into four terminals, with T4 and its satellite T4S set well apart from T1, T2 and T3. Your e-ticket carries the terminal, the driver, the registration plate and a number that reaches a person. Check the terminal on your boarding pass before you travel: a free inter-terminal bus links the two halves of the airport and takes 15 to 20 minutes.
Private transfers
Your driver stands in the arrivals hall of your terminal, beyond the barrier, with a board carrying your surname or the 'hoppa' logo.
Minibuses and coaches
Head for the coach stand outside your terminal, signed from the doors. Declare the headcount at booking and the vehicle waiting there is sized to it.
Delays & Driver Info
1
Free waiting time
On a domestic flight, your up to 60 minutes of free waiting starts when you land. On an international flight, a 30-minute buffer is added to your landing time first to cover a long passport queue and a slow T4 baggage belt, and the free wait starts after it.
Delayed, diverted or landing early?
Winter fog settles on the plateau and Madrid sends a handful of arrivals to Barcelona or Valencia each season. The booking watches your flight number, so a diversion reaches your operator before the arrivals board admits it. Expect a call about moving the pick-up. A plain delay needs no call at all, because the car shifts with the aircraft.
?
Can't find your driver?
Stay inside the arrivals hall of your terminal, past the barrier and call the number on your e-ticket. You wait an average of 11 seconds before someone picks up, and 99.7% of calls get answered: a real person, any hour of the day, any day of the week. The hoppa help centre answers most questions before you need to call.
What to do around Madrid?
A late departure leaves you an afternoon, and Madrid is a good city to spend one in.
- The Prado, the Reina Sofia and the Thyssen sit within ten minutes of each other on one boulevard, and all three open late on certain evenings.
- Retiro park holds a boating lake and a glass palace, and it is a twenty-minute walk from the Prado.
- Mercado de San Miguel beside the Plaza Mayor is a covered market turned into stalls of food, and it suits a short gap between things.
- Toledo is seventy kilometres south and about 35 minutes by high-speed train from Atocha, which makes a walled medieval city a half-day trip.