Inside the abandoned Spanish airport that cost £1billion to build
AN AIRPORT in Spain has been left abandoned for years – despite costing more than £1billion to built.
Ciudad Real Airport opened in 2008 only for it to close three years later.
The airport was originally meant to be an alternative to Madrid Barajas Airport, with a high-speed train station on the Madrid-Seville line.
The terminal was designed to handle up to 2.5million passengers a year with hopes that low-cost airlines would use the airport.
Airlines including Vueling and Ryanair operated flights for a short while, including the now closed Air Berlin.
However, these failed to last long, with the airport only carrying 190,000 passengers during it’s entire operation, having just three flights a week.
The airport was then declared bankrupt in 2010 with the last flight operated by Vueling on October 29, 2011.
Since then, the Spanish airport has failed to reopen to the public.
However, it is now a storage facility for planes, and was used throughout the pandemic when the majority of flights were grounded.
Pilots use the airport for training as well, with the 13,500ft runway one of the longest in Europe.
It’s also been used in TV shows – Top Gear filmed an episode there in 2013 while using the long runway to race sports cars.
There are a number of aiports that have been left abandoned over the years.
In the 1930s, Hellinikon Airport in Greece was a station for the Luftwaffe during the Nazi occupation of Greece.
It would later be redeveloped after becoming Athens’ most important airport for commercial travel by the 1950s but was eventually closed in 2001 after it was unable to handle the country’s travel demands.
And a number of defunct airports in the UK could soon reopen.
Manston Airport in Kent was closed back in 2014 after reporting huge losses but a huge renovation project hopes to allow the airport to reopen as early as 2026.
Dutch airline KLM could be one to return, while talks with budget airlines Ryanair, easyJet and Wizz Air also started pre-pandemic to offer flights to Spain, Cyprus and Malta
Plymouth City Council leader Richard Bingley is backing a bid to reopen Plymouth Airport, which closed back in 2011.
And Swansea Airport is reopening for after 19 years, with a new flight route to and from Exeter Airport launching this year.
But another UK airport was forced to close last year.
Doncaster Sheffield Airport shut for good in October 2022 after airline Wizz Air ceased operations.
