Ryanair receive €600,000 to fly to Ghost Airport

737max

The story is to be found on thelocal.es website

Spanish 'ghost airport' pays €600k per year to receive Ryanair flights
When the first commercial flight touched down on the virgin runway at Castellón in September it seemed to spell an end to the troubles of Spain’s infamous ghost airport.The airport had stood empty since its inauguration in 2011 and had become a symbol of the reckless public spending that left a nation buckling under debt.

But with an agreement with Ryanair to operate five flights a week to two UK destinations, the airport that cost an exhorbitant €150 million at last seemed to be on the way to becoming a viable commercial venture.

However, it has now emerged thanks to a report in El Confidencial that airport operators agreed to pay the Irish budget airline €600,000 ($638,000) a year in return for flying to Castellón.

The airline pledged to offer 60,000 seats a year to the destination, meaning each seat is subsidized with €10 from the airport operators.

The airport is run by Canadian owned SNC-Lavalin who won a contract to operate the airport from the Valencian regional government.

According to El Confidencial report SNC-Lavalin were paid €6 million to take over the airport, have a budget of €25 million of public funds to invest within the next ten years and don’t have to pay the Generalitat any profits until they exceed 1.2 million passengers a year.

The entire airport project has been plagued with difficulties and scandal since its inception.

It initially failed to get permits to allow air traffic when it emerged that the airstrip was too narrow and had to be dug up and widened.
Despite huge amounts being spent on advertising – an estimated €30 million was spent on a package of sponsorship deals – there seemed little to tempt airline operators to the airport and it was suggested that the "white elephant" be converted into a race track or shopping centre.

The man behind the development, the former president of the PP in Castellón Carlos Fabra, has been jailed for tax fraud. Towering over the terminal is a 25 meter high statue that cost €300,000 and represents Fabra.

However, it is widely considered to have brought a boost to the region, opening up a relatively undiscovered part of Spain to tourism.

L1011

Normal enough price range for a subsidy for them, I'd think. The hope is they'll continue after it runs out but I'd be very surprised if they do.

Dardania

Build it and they will come. Right time for it to happen, at the start of an upswing economically...

L1011

Dardania wrote: »

Build it and they will come. Right time for it to happen, at the start of an upswing economically...

The built quite a few and nobody came.

ElNino

Is that the airport that featured on Top Gear?

highlydebased

ElNino wrote: »

Is that the airport that featured on Top Gear?

That was Cuidad Real airport

GekkePrutser

I don't see this airport listed on the Ryanair website though? I was just looking for a nice trip for the christmas holidays and I was hoping this'd be cheap.. But it doesn't seem to be listed there yet.

munchkin_utd

that is a horrible article to be fair, and of the standard of web blogs in general (or irish independent).
Theres no idea given of when payments/ flights started or finished, or indeed if thats past present or future flights/ subsidies.
Its written like a historical article on something that happened, yet from the ryanair website the flights continue through the spring to the summer.

Kimbot

GekkePrutser wrote: »

I don't see this airport listed on the Ryanair website though? I was just looking for a nice trip for the christmas holidays and I was hoping this'd be cheap.. But it doesn't seem to be listed there yet.

Flights are from the UK

IngazZagni

Corruption is pretty much normal in Spanish politics. It's the housing bubble and massive infrastructure failures like this that caused the Spanish economy to crash. On the flipside, the infrastructure is very impressive!

Ryanair are always happy to receive subsidies with management admitting that airports should pay them! Hence ryanairs love of small airports where they have been subsidised.


Castellon is just another in a long list such as the top gear ghost airport near Madrid which ryanair flew to briefly before pulling out quickly.

If you think this is a big subsidy, I suggest you look at Eilat airport in Israel which ryanair has just started flying to. They receive €45 for every passenger they fly there!

L1011

GekkePrutser wrote: »

I don't see this airport listed on the Ryanair website though? I was just looking for a nice trip for the christmas holidays and I was hoping this'd be cheap.. But it doesn't seem to be listed there yet.

Theres nothing to do nearby and with a tenner a seat subsidy theres no reason flights would be that cheap

Theres a reason nobody flies there