Diálogo: en el aeropuerto

This page tracks one traveller through three scenes at Madrid–Barajas: the check-in counter, the security control, and the boarding gate. The grammar focus is on the everyday obligation patterns Spanish uses to tell people what to do — tener que + infinitive ("I have to"), hay que + infinitive ("one has to"), the ir a + infinitive near-future ("we're going to"), the simple future of prediction, and the staccato usted imperatives staff fire at you in airports across Spain.

By the end you'll have the working vocabulary to navigate any Spanish airport, plus the underlying grammar to understand the announcements crackling overhead.

La escena

Aeropuerto Madrid–Barajas Adolfo Suárez, terminal 4, una mañana de noviembre. Ana, treinta y pocos años, viaja sola a Berlín por trabajo. Lleva una maleta para facturar y una mochila de mano. Tiene la tarjeta de embarque en el móvil pero también la han impreso.

Escena 1: facturación

Empleada: Buenos días. ¿Su tarjeta de embarque y su pasaporte, por favor?

Ana: Buenos días. Aquí los tiene.

Empleada: ¿Va a facturar alguna maleta?

Ana: Sí, una. La mochila la llevo de mano.

Empleada: Muy bien. Póngala en la cinta, por favor. ¿Lleva dentro baterías de litio o algún líquido por encima de cien mililitros?

Ana: No, nada de eso.

Empleada: Perfecto. (Imprime la etiqueta.) Aquí tiene su resguardo. La recogerá en Berlín en la cinta correspondiente. Su vuelo sale por la puerta J 56. El embarque empieza a las diez y cuarto. Tiene que estar en la puerta veinte minutos antes. Buen viaje.

Escena 2: control de seguridad

Agente: Pase, por favor. Saque el portátil y los líquidos de la mochila y póngalos en una bandeja aparte. Quítese el cinturón y el reloj. ¿Lleva algo en los bolsillos?

Ana: No, ya he sacado todo.

Agente: Pase por el arco. (Pasa.) Bien, puede recoger sus cosas. Que tenga buen viaje.

Escena 3: en la puerta de embarque

Megafonía: Pasajeros del vuelo IB tres mil ciento cuarenta y dos con destino a Berlín, en breve vamos a iniciar el embarque por la puerta J cincuenta y seis. Rogamos tengan preparada su tarjeta de embarque y un documento de identidad.

(Ana se acerca a la puerta. Espera. Un empleado coge el micrófono.)

Empleado: Buenos días. Comenzamos el embarque por filas. Si llevan equipaje de mano que no quepa debajo del asiento delantero, tendrán que dejarlo en la pasarela. No hay que preocuparse, lo recogerán al final del vuelo en la puerta del avión. Embarque prioritario, pasen, por favor.

Annotations

"¿Su tarjeta de embarque y su pasaporte?"

The check-in employee opens with the formal possessive su. Two key vocabulary items here: tarjeta de embarque (boarding pass — literally "boarding card") and the universal pasaporte. The whole sentence has no verb at all — it's just two noun phrases offered as a polite request. Spanish (like English) often skips the verb in service interactions where the action is obvious.

"Aquí los tiene"

Ana hands over both documents and says aquí los tiene. The pronoun los (third-person masculine plural) refers to both the boarding pass and the passport. Why masculine? Because pasaporte is masculine, and when you have a mixed-gender list, masculine wins. Tarjeta alone would have given aquí la tiene; the pair takes los.

"¿Va a facturar alguna maleta?"

Two important pieces of grammar in one short question. Va a + infinitive is the periphrastic future — Spanish's everyday way of expressing near-future intentions. Va is the third-person singular (here usted) present of ir. The construction parallels English be going to: "Are you going to check a suitcase?"

Facturar is the verb for checking in luggage. Don't confuse it with registrarse (to check in, of a person — at a hotel, not the airport in Spain). The Spanish noun is la facturación, and the area where you check in bags is los mostradores de facturación.

"La mochila la llevo de mano"

This sentence uses the very common Spanish clitic-doubling pattern: the object la mochila is fronted for topic emphasis, and the pronoun la repeats it before the verb. Word for word: "the backpack, I carry it as hand-luggage."

This clitic-doubling is obligatory when the object is fronted before the verb. It is not optional and not redundant in the grammatical sense; it's how Spanish marks topic-fronted objects. English would use a different mechanism (stress, "as for X"), but Spanish uses the pronoun. See direct object placement for more.

"Póngala en la cinta"

Two usted imperatives in a row here: póngala (put it) and quítese (take off). Póngala combines the usted imperative ponga (from poner) with the feminine direct-object pronoun la (= la mochila). The accent on póngala is required because the verb plus pronoun shifts the stress backward to the third syllable from the end.

Quítese uses quitar (to remove) in its reflexive form quitarse (to take off — of clothing or accessories). The reflexive marker -se attaches to the usted imperative quite, again with the stress-preserving accent.

"¿Lleva baterías de litio o algún líquido por encima de cien mililitros?"

A bundle of airport-security vocabulary. Baterías de litio = lithium batteries (always asked about because of the in-flight fire risk). Líquidos por encima de cien mililitros = liquids over 100 ml (the EU limit). The preposition por encima de = above / over (a threshold), as opposed to encima de alone, which means on top of spatially.

"Tiene que estar en la puerta veinte minutos antes"

Tener que + infinitive is the everyday way to express personal obligation in Spanish — "I/you/we have to do X." The verb tener conjugates for the person responsible; the que and the infinitive stay constant.

Compare with hay que + infinitive in scene 3 below: that's the impersonal form ("one has to") for general rules that apply to everyone.

"La recogerá en Berlín"

Recogerá is the simple future of recoger — third-person singular, used as usted. Spanish has two ways to express future: the periphrastic ir a + infinitive (more frequent in conversation, used for plans and near future) and the simple future -é, -ás, -á... (used for predictions, formal contexts, and slightly more distant events).

The employee uses the simple future because she's describing what will happen at the other end of the trip — distant in space and time. For a more immediate action ("I'm going to do this right now"), she would have used va a recoger.

"Pase, por favor"

Pase is the usted imperative of pasar. In airport-security and many service contexts it functions as a quick "come through" or "step up." Latin American airports would have pase, por favor too — but in Spain you also hear adelante (literally "forward") and por aquí (this way) in similar functions.

"Saque el portátil"

The security agent fires off a sequence of imperatives. Saque = usted imperative of sacar (to take out). El portátil is the peninsular term for laptop — short for ordenador portátil (portable computer). Latin America says la computadora portátil or la laptop; in Spain ordenador is the computer and portátil (used alone as a masculine noun) is the laptop.

"Ya he sacado todo"

Ana replies ya he sacado todo — "I've already taken everything out." This is the present perfect (pretérito perfecto compuesto), built with haber + past participle: he sacado, has sacado, ha sacado. In peninsular Spanish the present perfect is the default for actions completed today or within the immediate past ("hodiernal" past). Latin American Spanish prefers the simple preterite (ya saqué todo) in the same situation; in Spain, ya he sacado sounds more natural.

See peninsular hodiernal use for the full pattern.

"En breve vamos a iniciar el embarque"

The PA announcement uses ir a + infinitive for the impending action: vamos a iniciar el embarque — "we are going to start boarding." Notice the slightly elevated vocabulary: iniciar (to initiate) instead of the everyday empezar (to start); en breve (shortly) instead of pronto (soon). Airport announcements lean formal across the Spanish-speaking world.

"Rogamos tengan preparada su tarjeta de embarque"

A very formal construction: rogamos (we request) + present subjunctive tengan + adjective preparada + noun. Notice the absence of que between rogamos and tengan — in formal announcements Spanish often drops the que in subordinate clauses, leaving a bare subjunctive. In everyday speech you would say rogamos *que tengan preparada...; in airport / train station / official-announcement register, the *que gets dropped.

"Si llevan equipaje de mano que no quepa debajo del asiento, tendrán que dejarlo en la pasarela"

A real conditional: si + present + future. The structure: si llevan X que no quepa... ("if you're carrying X that doesn't fit...") + tendrán que + infinitive ("you'll have to..."). Notice quepa — present subjunctive of caber (to fit) — triggered by the negative-antecedent relative clause que no quepa ("that doesn't fit"). When you describe a hypothetical or non-specific item in a relative clause, the verb in the clause is subjunctive.

Tendrán is the simple future of tener — irregular stem tendr-. The pattern is widespread: tener → tendrá, poner → pondrá, salir → saldrá, venir → vendrá, poder → podrá, saber → sabrá.

"No hay que preocuparse"

The PA shifts to impersonal obligation: no hay que preocuparse — "one needn't worry / there's no need to worry." Hay que + infinitive is impersonal: it doesn't specify who has to do it; everyone does, or nobody in particular does. Compare:

Vocabulary recap

Common transfer errors

Key takeaways

• Facturar = check in (bags), embarque = boarding, portátil = laptop, ordenador = computer. These four words mark your Spanish as peninsular instantly.
• Tener que
  • infinitive = personal obligation. Hay que
    • infinitive = impersonal obligation.
• Ir a
  • infinitive is the conversational near future; the simple future is more formal, more predictive, and used for distant or remote events.
• Imperative + clitic pronouns require accent marks once the stress shifts back two syllables: póngala, quítese, dígamelo.
• Peninsular Spanish prefers the present perfect (he sacado, has facturado) for actions completed within the day; Latin American Spanish prefers the simple preterite. Both are correct, but they sound regionally distinct.