Castellón

40°12'53"N 000°04'27"E

Runway: 06/24 - 2700meters/8858feet - asphalt (CLOSED)

Castellón-Costa Azahar Airport (Spanish: Aeropuerto de Castellón-Costa Azahar, Valencian: Aeroport de Castelló, ICAO: LEDS) is an airfield 320 kilometers east of Madrid.
The airfield was planned from 1997 and construction began in 2004.
By 2011 construction cost had risen to 150 million Euro (£130m/$200m).
Although the airport was officially opened on 25 March 2011, it had yet to see its first real aircraft in November 2012.
Although in part to blame to the economic downturn in Europe (which hit particularly hard in Spain), it is caused mainly by over optimistic prognoses, bad planning and bad management.
In addition, in February 2012, newspaper El País reported that modifications would have to be made to the runway before the airport could be brought into use.
Only the month before it emerged that 30 million euros had been spent on publicity for Castellon airport, despite the fact that it had failed to secure permits to receive air traffic.
The private contractor hired to run the airport for 50 years demands that the regional government of Valencia reimburses him 80 million euros for cancelling its contract.
The airport was filled with expensive luxuries, ranging from a 300,000 Euro bronze statue of the the airports instigator Carlos Fabra to expensive custom furniture.
A contract for 6 ferrets, some falcons and their handler made headlines because of its annual cost: 450,000 Euros, just to keep birds and other pests under control.
The airport installed Europe's only full-body X-ray scanner —the controversial machine that shows travelers naked— only so people would have shorter waits at security.





Castellon, largely completed but still closed in 2010





Inside the empty terminal building in 2011 (SeriouslySpain.com).


The airport was never without critics, but unlike other places they had nothing to do with the airfield still being closed.
In protest, and within days of the unfinished airport's perplexing inauguration, 6,000 Castellon residents had joined a Facebook group proposing a rave on the 2,700-meter-long runway.
The invitation was a doctored photo of Mr. Fabra in a pink flight attendant's hat and local politician Camps blowing confetti from a pipe.
Meanwhile, the Ghost Airport of Castellon annually spends €5.5 Million on security guards.
Under the current (2012) economic climate, the airport is too expensive to maintain, yet too valuable to break down.
If, and when, it will open is anyones guess.





Castellon terminal area in 2011