Spain’s ‘Ghost Airport’ Sold at Auction for 10,000 Euros

The group of investors, dubbed Tzaneen worldwide, said in a statement it intended to invest up to 100 million euros in developing the airport to make it a main entry point for Chinese companies to Europe.

An abandoned Spanish airport which cost about 1.1bn euros ($1.2bn) to build has been sold for 10,000 euros in a bankruptcy auction.

The bid has not been topped by any other investors, meaning that if no other bids are placed by September, the site will be theirs for the bargain price.

Ciudad Real’s La Mancha airport opened in 2008 only to go bankrupt and close by 2012. If no better bid is received by September, the sale will go through.

Tzaneen was awarded the asset at an auction held by a court in central Spain and plans to turn the so-called ghost airport into a European hub for Chinese companies, it said in an e-mail sent by local public relations firm Estudio de Comunicacion. It cost more than 1 billion euros to built.

The airport was previously made available at a price of €80 million, with that sale expiring on July 10 without any takers, allowing lower offers to be made.

Spain granted approval in 2006 for the privately-owned airport with a 4,000-meter (2.5 mile) runway originally named after the famously deluded literary figure Don Quixote. The 1.1-billion euro worldwide airport, completed in 2009, was meant to serve both Madrid and the Andalucían coast, accessible in 50 minutes via a high speed rail link, but lack of demand driven by Spain’s economic crisis brought its closure after just three years.