In Spain, a Symbol of Ruin at an Airport to Nowhere

By RAPHAEL MINDER

Published: July 18, 2012

MADRID — A plane has finally reached the ghost airport of Castellón, in southeastern Spain.

Domenech Castello/European Pressphoto Agency

This statue at an airport in Castellón Province in Spain was supposed to honor an official who is now under investigation.

Rather than sitting on the runway, however, the aircraft, an aluminum model, was placed this week atop a giant statue along the entrance road to the airport — another twist in the tale of a $183 million project that has become a symbol of the wasteful spending that has sunk Spain deep into a recession and a banking crisis.

The statue, 79 feet tall and budgeted at $375,000, was supposed to honor Carlos Fabra, the longstanding head of Castellón’s provincial government and the driving force behind the airport project.

Mr. Fabra was placed under judicial investigation this year in connection with several cases of corruption and tax evasion. He has not been charged, however, and he is not expected to appear in court before the end of the year.

On Saturday, Mr. Fabra formally stepped down as the head of the provincial branch of Spain’s governing Popular Party, which he had run for 22 years. He still maintains the chairmanship of the public company that runs the airport.

Even though the airport has failed to attract a single scheduled flight, Mr. Fabra has staunchly defended his project. In March 2011, when the airport was formally inaugurated, he argued that it would provide a unique opportunity to turn an airport into a tourist attraction, giving visitors full access to the runway and other areas normally kept out of bounds because of safety concerns.

On Saturday, he again described the airport as “a necessary development tool” for his province. Castellón lies in the region of Valencia, which has a debt load of just under $25 billion and a credit rating that was recently downgraded to junk status.

The statue was commissioned by Mr. Fabra and was built by a local sculptor, Juan Ripollés, who titled his work “The Plane Man.” Mr. Ripollés is now saying that he was forced to spend $155,000 of his own money and “empty the pockets of my children” to complete a work that, he said, ended up costing about $600,000.

As part of a decade-long construction and housing boom, Spain added airports, toll roads and railway lines, often under pressure from regional politicians seeking a greater presence within the national transport network. Many of the recently built highways are now deserted, and only one-fifth of Spain’s airports made a profit last year.

Mr. Fabra’s daughter, Andrea, a national lawmaker who also represents the Popular Party, sent a written apology this week to the speaker of Parliament after a defamatory outburst last Wednesday, when Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy presented an $80 billion austerity package, including cuts in unemployment benefits. Ms. Fabra later insisted that her insult was aimed not at the jobless but at the Socialist lawmakers, who later asked for her resignation.

A version of this article appeared in print on July 19, 2012, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: In Spain, a Symbol of Ruin At an Airport to Nowhere.

via In Spain, a Symbol of Ruin at an

Airport to Nowhere – NYTimes.com.

Spain’s white elephants – how country’s airports lie empty

Only 11 of Spain’s 48 regional airports are profitable and its newest project has yet to see a single passenger through its terminal.

Castellón Airport

The gleaming new air traffic control tower shimmers in the midday heat, visible for miles around, it rises up above groves of orange trees in the agricultural region of Castellón, north of Valencia.

But it has yet to guide a single aircraft onto the 3,000 yards of virgin runway at Spain’s newest airport, inaugurated in March at a cost of 150 million euros (£130 million).

The metal clad terminal stands empty, its vast car park untarnished by a single vehicle, weeds growing up through the pavements, the only sign of life.

It is the newest example of infrastructure “white elephants” that litter the Spanish countryside, huge projects often funded by taxpayer money that helped drive Spain’s economic boom and that have come to symbolise the wasteful spending contributing to its spectacular bust.

Castellón Airport promised to be a gateway to an undiscovered region, providing jobs for locals in a country struggling with 21 per cent unemployment rate, and delivering tourists tempted by cheap deals to some of Spain’s most beautiful white sand beaches.

But six months after its completion it has yet to be awarded an airport license – a fact many attribute to political differences between the Conservative-run region and the socialist government in Madrid – still yet attract the attention of the low-cost airlines deemed so necessary for its success.

The fate of another of Spain’s airports will do little to encourage investors in Castellón. Next month Spanish low cost carrier Vueling will cease to operate routes from Ciudad Real airport, 125 miles south of Madrid in Castile-La Mancha.

“Low profitability of the routes, increased cost of aviation fuel, and the stagnation of the Spanish economy have forced the decision,” the airline said in a statement.

With only two flights a week it was the only commercial airline left operating.

The airport, the first privately-owned venture in Spain although publicly subsidised, opened in December 2008 costing close to 1 billion Euros and with the ambition of becoming a cargo and passenger in the shadow of the capital’s Barajas airport. It was even called Madrid South.

But far from meeting its target forecast of 1.5m passengers a year, it managed only 100,000 in 2010, and saw airlines including Ryanair, Air Berlin and Air Nostrum drop it from their routes as unprofitable.

Last year the company that ran the airport went into receivership owing millions to contractors, and leading the Bank of Spain to take control of the regional savings bank Caja Castilla La Mancha which bankrolled the project.

Under specially negotiated employment contracts all airport personnel, even its executives, rotate with three months on the job followed by three months at home on the dole.

Another example is Huesca airport, opened in 2007 in the shadow of the Pyrenees in northeastern Spain, regional authorities hoped to attract skiers to its slopes, even subsiding the now defunct Pyrenair.

Seeing only 6,228 passengers in the whole of 2009, one report stated that each passenger cost the public coffers some 700 euros (£600) and last year its losses amounted to 6m euros (£5.2m).

The last commercial flight departed in April, the next is not due until January. But the fully staffed airport still attracts visitors – locals drive out to the airport to dine in its air-conditioned cafés and restaurants.

During the height of the construction boom, authorities rushed to take advantage of low-cost airlines, to plan new airports and open up hitherto unknown regions to northern European tourists.

But of the 48 regional commercial airports built in the debt-ridden country in less than 20 years, only 11 make a profit.

As part of a series of austerity measures designed to wrench Spain out of its deep economic problems, Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero promised partially to privatise its airports. Negotiations are still under way.

Back in Castellón, residents are not at all surprised at the fate of Spain’s newest airport.

“I always thought it was a stupid idea to build one here when we are less than one hour from Valencia airport and I was right,” confessed Vicento Bore, a 78-year old pensioner playing cards with friends in the tranquil square of Vilanova d’Alcorea, a village with 700 inhabitants less than two miles from Castellon airport.

“To think that we were worried about all the noise of suddenly being in a flight path,” he laughed. “What a joke.”

By Fiona Govan, Castellón 8:45AM BST 05 Oct 2011

via http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/8807723/Spains-white-elephants-how-countrys-airports-lie-empty.html

The Valencian Government assumes the additional €5m cost of Castellón Airport

Aerocas, the company set up by the Valencian Government to develop Castellon Airport, and the private company, Concesiones Aeroportuarias, have reached an agreement that the first will assume the first five million euros of additional costs for the infrastructure. The latter guarantees that the work will be completed within two or three months, although the airport will still lack the necessary permission to operate flights.

Castellón airport was experiencing a critical situation due to financial problems. The delays of the infrastructure have led to cost overruns that the concessionaire considers attributable to Aerocas. This is the case with the power line, whose construction was halted for a time because Aerocas had not paid Iberdrola. Other additional costs arose because Aerocas imposed modifications to the project to adapt to new regulatory scenarios and that had economic consequences. Between them the delays and modifications have generated additional costs close to five million euros. The concessionaire thinks that these are attributable to Aerocas, since it was responsible for the delay to the power line and the changes in the project.

The problem is that Aerocas depends on the Conselleria de Economía through the society Proyectos Temáticos for finance. Without the permission of the minister, Gerardo Camps, Aerocas is unable to meet the financial claims of Concesiones Aeroportuarias. For several months, there has been a stalemate between the public and private companies. Finally, the Government has agreed to take over payments. This is not the only extra cost which the airport has generated. The most important was motivated by the stay order issued by Ministerio de Fomento in 2005. Then the Government paid compensation of 18 million euros to the concessionaire.

Now that an agreement has been reached, the outstanding works shall be carried out. They as soon as the power line is executed The infrastructure should be completed in two or three months. We will have to wait though a few more months for the permissions to be processed by the agencies of the state so that the planes can operate on the Costa Azahar.

The president of Aerocas, Carlos Fabra, insisted yesterday that the airport will be opened before the International Tourism Fair, Fitur. He said that the work is basically finished, but that there is some tidying up needed after diverting the towers of Iberdrola. With respect to authorisation of permits, he said that it will depend on the Ministerio de Fomento. In some ten or fifteen days the petition will be submitted and they will tell us what we must do. Fabra affirmed that the Ministerio has assured him that it will not delay unnecessarily the process. If we work together, the airport will be available to fly in summer, around June and July he added. He also stated that it is preparing the network of taxis and studying bus services, although this question may depend on the concessionaire. However he gave aas an example that Peñiscola and the airport could be connected in 20 minutes.