A HUGE airport in central Spain that cost €1 billion to build has gone up for auction for just €100 million.

The airport has not received a commercial flight since 2011.

With a runway long enough to land an Airbus 380, the world’s largest airliner, and a capacity to handle 10 million passengers per year, the airport at Ciudad Real some 200km south of Madrid, has become a symbol of Spain’s real estate bubble.

Spain’s first private international airport operated its first flight in December 2008 but passenger traffic never took off and CR Aeropuertos, the operator of the terminal, went into bankruptcy in June 2012 with debts of around €300 million.

Bidding will close on December 27.

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18 COMMENTS

  1. “…cost €1 billion to build has gone up for auction for just €100 million.The airport has not received a commercial flight since 2011.” – NOT related to the real estate boom but 200 km from Madrid, it’s related to terrible business planning by “skilled” politicians who wasted Taxpayers’ money. Would those politicians involved please REIMBURSE 900 Million Euros they wasted to the Taxpayers? That would be accountability for you!

  2. In 2005 returning to Guadix from Madrid on the autobus we passed 3 large developments, ugly tower blocks. Built in the middle of nowhere. You could see there was no infrastructure to support these tower blocks – totally insane.

    To be fair to those who built this airport there was a plan to build the equivalence of Sun City, South Africa. Massive casinos with lots of bordellos.

  3. I’ll pay something towards an airport that specialises only in taking miserable moaning sunburnt ex-pat Brits that hardly speak any Spanish back to the uk?! Not sure it would be big enough though. Might need some kind of prison-like holding cells until flights are available, then WHOOSH – GONE!

    ‘BACK2BLIGHTY Airlines’ – no food with any drinks on board, only pints of lager allowed. Also must talk, mainly in cockney accents, at an annoyingly loud volume level all the way home.

  4. what a strange lot of comments.
    Mr Stevens and caccia does it not bother you that our politians can waste a billion euros?
    this was a ridiculous scheme from day one. many people said so. it was no secret that this was simply a waste of eu and taxpayers money.
    And you think it was paid for my private individuals? in spain! Talk about rose-tinted glasses, more like numerous sangria jugs infront of your eyes.
    How can anyone not be offended at this collosial waste of money.

  5. YES IT IS wasting of money BigJon. Yet more wasting of money.

    Let’s just hope the Paramount Theme Park gets built and is successful bringing in millions of people to the region. Otherwise more wasting of money and would contribute towards another empty new airport at Corvera.

  6. It really is strange that some people cannot accept the fact that the airport was built with private money.

    The Guardian in an article about the airport on the 7th August, reported that it was built by a consortium led by the Castilla-La Mancha Savings Bank who had a 68% share in the project.

    They and other papers report that the airport is being auctioned by the company’s receiver to cover losses. Governments do not use company receivers to auction property nor do they report profit or losses on projects.

    The airport was built without EU or taxpayers money.

  7. It really is strange how some people speak their ingorance as scripture.

    Not a single spaniard lost a single euro over this debacle.

    The whole project was backed by the government. The gov bailed out all investors. And the gov in turn got bailed by the EU.
    So…
    the EU paid for it all.

  8. see BigJon is one of the new angries.. welcome to your new world!

    If a country gets bailed out they just receive a loan. It’s not really solving the problem. Also if CR Aeropuertos went into bankruptcy ‘with debts of around €300 million’, that’s €300 million owed to Spanish companies they won’t see a penny of.

    Nothing worse than bankruptcy for everyone surrounding the debtors.

  9. Why do you (PHerring, MrStevens) keep coming back with odd and antagonistic comments? Are you employed by OlivePress to increase ‘foot traffic’, are you just windup merchants, do you just enjoy being annoying? what gives?

    The airport was primarily financed by Caja Castilla La Mancha savings bank. The first of Spain’s troubled savings banks to be bailed out, in 2010.
    The taxpayers ended up paying for the whole thing.
    If you’re splitting hairs and saying that wasnt the plan in the beginning… then you need to read more, as the bank made sure they were backed by the gov. (who in turn made sure they were backed by the eu). And everyone knew it was doomed to failure.

  10. BigJon,

    Mr Stevens an I are merely putting you right about who paid for the airport.

    You have now agreed with me that the Spanish Government did not initially pay anything towards the building of the airport. I hope to show you that not one cent of Spanish government money went near that airport.

    The airport was built by a company led by the Castille-La Mancha Savings bank and others who provided €1bn of their own money.

    When the airport went bust, the airport had already been paid for, and that company lost all of it’s €1bn of money. This was NOT reimbursed by the Spanish Government. They also had debts of €300 million (€600 I heard) owed to its suppliers as was pointed out by Mr Stevens. This loss
    by the suppliers was also not reimbursed by the Spanish Government.

    The Castille-La Mancha Savings Bank’s shareholders lost all their money in the venture (part of the €1bn), They also were not reimbursed.

    The savings bank needed a bailout. This did not come from the Spanish Government, as they asked the EU to bailout the banks direct. The EU bailed out this savings bank and others to the tune of €40bn. The bailout took the form of a loan to be REPAID by 2025. It was NOT a handout. It was NOT a grant.

    The money from the bailout cannot be legally used (because of company law) to pay off the debts of the airport or the shareholders who lost money.

    So there is no way the Spanish Government can have paid retrospectively for the airport or got in anyway involved in it’s finance. It does not own the airport either.

    But in fact, the Spanish Treasury might have come out ahead on the deal in that when the airport company spent it’s €1bn, it would have had to pay the Spanish equivalent of VAT on building materials and income tax and NI for the people using the shovels.

  11. You say the wrong thing as many times as you like – but it will remain wrong.

    Where do you think the EU gets its money?
    Taxpayers!

    You have clearly read the ‘official’ line on the corruption, but i suggest you dig a bit deeper. Here’s an idea – find one individual who has total lost money…
    (you wont, before you respond without looking)

    At the end of the day, the only money spent is the EUs. You can call it a loan if you want, but as spain NEVER repays them, its not really the right word, is it?!

  12. BigJon,

    You would get more common sense out of a 5 year old than those numskulls. Show them a few rays of sunshine and they forget about everything. All that Roger Stevens keeps talking about is sending brits home, I just hope they don’t send him back to the UK, good job we have places like Spain to send his type to laong with his leader cacayaya.

  13. Sorry Racist Reap it’s only a one way ticket for miserable Brits, like yourself, BACK to the uk. You’re banned from ever coming to Spain again to enjoy the sunshine! I just hope thousands of your immigrant friends you like camp out in your garden from next year.

    Glad you agree BigJob ‘You can call it a loan if you want’ ha ha. Thanks for at least acknowledging this.

  14. We seem to be in almost total agreement.

    You now accept what I said in my first comment here, that only private money was used to build the airport, that the Spanish Government has not paid for any of it, and that the EU is in no way connected with the building of it.

    On a separate issue we are agreed that EU money has been lent to the Spanish banks due to disastrous business decisions, including building an airport as well as lending enormous sums to property firms. We are also agreed that it would be wrong to say that all the empty blocks of flats and ghost towns in Spain were built using EU or taxpayer’s money just the same as with the airport.

    Where we differ is in your statement that Spain NEVER repays it’s debts, when in fact the Spanish Government has NOT defaulted on a loan since 1809. They came close last year, but did not default.

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