A ‘ghost airport’ that opened four years ago in Castellon, Spain is finally set to begin operations after Irish LCC, Ryanair announced scheduled flights to the UK.
Flights will link the €150 million airport to London Stansted three-times-weekly and Bristol twice-weekly from September this year.
Castellon-Costa Azahar Airport became one of Spain’s white elephant airports, after it opened in March 2011 and was one of the Valencia region’s many grand building projects. The city region is already served by Valencia Airport, and nearby airports Reus and Alicante both also serve similar markets.
Until recently, Castellon has only hosted charter flights carrying teams from the Spanish football league, and flights from the region’s general aviation flying club.
The airport has faced a multitude of problems which have contributed to the airport lying dormant for the past four years. In 2012, part of the runway had to be demolished due to an error of measurement, and in 2013 the airport received more backlash after it was revealed it had no provisions to fuel planes, as fuel stations had not yet been built.
Ryanair announced its plans to fly to Castellon in its latest press release which highlighted the airline’s London Stansted winter schedule.
“Ryanair is pleased to launch our biggest ever London Stansted winter 2015 schedule, with two new routes to Castellón and Ponta Delgada—110 in total—and more flights on 23 routes, which will deliver over 18 million customers p.a. and support 18,000 on site jobs at London Stansted Airport,” said Ryanair’s Chief Marketing Officer, Kenny Jacobs.
Ryanair will start selling the flights on Friday (13MAR15), and it said it has the capacity to bring 60,000 passengers a year to Castellon.
Castellon is the 24th airport in Spain to carry Ryanair flights, and the Irish budget airline handled nearly 32 million passengers in Spain in 2014.
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