Ciudad Real Central Airport, an abandoned airport in Spain which cost €1bn to build, was sold for €10,000 at a bankruptcy auction.
Tzaneen International, a Chinese-led consortium of investors, has won the airport in the auction and it was the only bidder in the auction.
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In 2013, the airport was put up for auction for a price of €100m. The price was later reduced as the airport failed to attract any investor.
The sale of the airport is not certain as the receiver could still take a bid from another buyer until September this year.
The receiver had set a minimum price of €28m for the airport.
If the sale goes ahead, Tzaneen reportedly plans to invest up to €100m in the airport to make it an entry point into Europe for Chinese companies.
The airport in Ciudad Real, about 200km south of Madrid, was opened in 2008 with a capacity to handle ten million passengers per year.
With the longest runway in Europe, measuring 4,200m, the airport failed to draw enough passenger traffic and became a ‘ghost airport’.
As a result, the airport operator CR Aeropuertos went bankrupt in June 2012 with debts of around €300m.
Constructed during Spain’s building boom, Ciudad Real airport is one among several ‘ghost airports’ that failed to attract passengers.
Image: Ciudad Real Central Airport has the longest runway in Europe, measuring 4,200m. Photo: courtesy of Africa Twin / Wikipedia.
