Ryanair is to start the first commercial flights from Spain’s ‘ghost airport’, Castellón.
The airport opened in 2011, but in the intervening four years it only saw its first flight departure in January this year when the Villareal football team left on a charter flight for a game in San Sebastián in the north.
It had been commissioned by local politician Carlos Fabra, who is now serving four years for tax fraud, and cost €150 million to build.
Ryanair will fly from there to Bristol and to Stansted, with flights available from mid-September this year.
The airport is north of Valencia, an area also served by international airports such as Valencia, Alicante and Barcelona.
In the flush 1990s, Madrid told Spain’s regions to undertake projects that would set them apart from each other and widen tourism from just the coast. Valencia built a Sydney-style opera house and Europe’s largest aquarium, projects which helped rejuvenate the town.
But the boom years ended and the economy lay in ruins. The white elephant airport became a symbol of high hopes and high life during better days.
