Ciudad Real Central Airport

Ciudad Real Central Airport
Ciudad Real Central Airport
Aeropuerto Central Ciudad Real
IATA: noneICAO: LERLLID: CQM [1]
Summary
Airport type Private
Operator CR Aeropuertos
Serves Ciudad Real and Puertollano
Location Ciudad Real, Spain
Elevation AMSL 636 m / 2,086 ft
Coordinates 38°51′23″N 003°58′12″W / 38.85639°N 3.97°W / 38.85639; -3.97
Website AeropuertoCentralCR.com
Runways
Direction Length Surface
m ft
10/28 4,000 13,123 Asphalt
Ciudad Real Central Airport
Ciudad Real Central Airport

Ciudad Real Central Airport (ICAO: LERL) is an airport in South Ciudad Real (Spain). It is located adjacent to the A43 highway and a short distance from the AP41 toll highway and will have a connection to the Madrid-Seville high speed train line, making it the first Spanish airport accessed via the AVE system, 50 minutes from downtown Madrid, 50 minutes from Córdoba, and less than 2 hours from Seville and Málaga. It is the first international private airport in Spain. The airport construction project had a budget of 1.1 billion euro.

It was previously known as Don Quijote Airport and South Madrid Airport.

Contents

Facilities

The airport has a single runway (10/28), 4,000 m (13,123 ft) long and 60 m (197 ft) wide servicing national and international commercial flights (regular and charter). Part of the installations are dedicated to private and sport flights, and it will have an area for maintenance, a heliport and an industrial zone of over 8 km². The passenger terminal is planned to process a maximum of 10 million passengers a year, and its cargo facilities are planned to process a maximum of 47,000 tonnes a year.

The airport is now open.

Airlines and destinations

Effective 30 October 2011, there are no scheduled commercial flights to or from Ciudad Real

Current Situation

The airport has turned out to be a financial disaster so far. Due to poor planning and overoptimism on the part of large financial investors major deficiencies in the early planning stages were overlooked. A single airline has signed up to fly out of the airport and none of the potential airlines that were considered were actually interested in utilizing the airport. The actual passenger traffic has measured in the low thousands, compared to the anticipated traffic of up to 10 million. The future outlook looks equally bleak. The airport has contributed significantly to the financial trouble of the creditor institutions.

Cancelled Routes

Up until the 11th of November 2010, the airport serviced flights from London Stansted with the low cost carrier Ryanair carrying approximately 22,000 passengers. This link was an important international link for the city and the province of Ciudad Real but also to the community of Castilla-La Mancha. The route operated 3 times weekly, but due to a breakdown in trade agreements with Ryanair and financial difficulties of the airport, the route was cancelled. 20 jobs were lost in the process.

References

External links