Ryanair to start flights from Spanish ‘ghost’ airport

Ryanair said yesterday it would start flights between Castellon airport in Spain and Britain in September, in the first regular commercial flights to operate from the “ghost” airport since it opened in 2011.

Castellon airport, on the eastern Mediterranean coast 70km north of Valencia, was built at a cost of €150m during the country’s building bonanza which ended in a 2008 crash and a bailout of its banking system.

The airport was the pet project of local People’s Party politician, Carlos Fabra, now serving time in jail for tax fraud, and became a symbol of how Spain’s regional governments rashly spent billions on grand projects in the boom years.