Every Sunday afternoon this summer, travelers clearing security at Ibiza Airport have walked into something closer to a club than a duty-free shop. From 5pm to 9pm, DJ Giancarlo works the decks inside the tax-free retail zone, turning last-minute perfume and rum purchases into a soundtrack for boarding. It is not new: the same setup ran through summer 2025 and has simply been switched back on.
What is new is the Consell d'Eivissa's patience running out. Tourism director Juan Miguel Costa contacted airport director Marta Torres directly to convey what Periódico de Ibiza describes as the council's formal 'malestar', its displeasure, and to demand Aena shut the sessions down. Costa's argument is blunt: the island government is mid-campaign to reposition Ibiza's image beyond parties and nightlife, and the state-owned gateway to the island is doing the opposite in its own terminal.
Whose nightclub is it, exactly?
Aena's response so far has been to point elsewhere. The operator told the outlet the DJ sets are 'a commercial action organized by' Avolta, the Swiss travel-retail group that runs the airport's duty-free concession (the space still carries the legacy Aldeasa branding locally, and its own promotional material calls it Club Avolta). That framing lets Aena run the sessions on its property while declining ownership of the decision, an arrangement the Consell isn't buying: the council's objection is Aena's terminal, Aena's brand, Aena's call.
This isn't the council's first attempt to rein it in. It approved a formal request back in 2024 asking Aena to dial back nightlife advertising across the terminal, including arrivals and baggage claim, where club branding has spread onto floors, walls and even ceilings. That request went nowhere, and the Sunday sessions came back anyway.
Why does an airport DJ set matter to the wider scene?
Because it lands the same summer Ibiza's authorities have been publicly tightening enforcement against unlicensed villa parties and clandestine raves elsewhere on the island, the exact strain of unregulated club culture officials say undermines licensed venues and drives complaints from residents. A state-run duty-free zone hosting weekly DJ sets with no venue license, no door policy and no relationship to the island's actual club industry sits awkwardly next to that crackdown. For an island that built a global economy on regulated, ticketed clubbing, the optics of the airport itself running the least accountable version of a rave is exactly the contradiction the Consell is calling out.
"It's not normal that inside Aena there's increasingly ample space for nightclub advertising," Costa told Periódico de Ibiza, adding that the terminal is being 'customized' for club promotion in a way that crowds out the island's other tourism offerings.
Whether Aena actually pulls the plug is another matter. Nothing in this dispute obliges the operator to comply, and the 2024 request already proved that a formal ask from the Consell doesn't guarantee a change in the terminal.
