Spain's empty airports (V): Burgos

This case is similar to Logroño (see previous post). The historical city of Burgos and its region is not without its tourist attractions, and to be fair, in spite of the economic crisis, Burgos airport (RGS) has shown some modest growth since its inauguration, in 2008. However, it has capacity for 500,000 passengers year, and with only a handful of regular flights, operated by Air Nostrum, to Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca and Paris-Orly, there are serious doubts about its capacity to generate enough demand on the long-term to make it economically viable.

The Spanish government invested €45.6 million on this facility, a figure that might be justified in cases where the airport helps break geographical isolation (it does not seem to be the case here) or brings significant benefits in the form of tourism income and local development. This might be a valid strategy for Burgos, but when taking a closer look at where did the growth in traffic come from, a rather different picture emerges, there have been some new charter flights operating at the airport, but they are flying local people out rather than bringing tourists in! So, in practice, the government is subsidising locals to go spend their money elsewhere...does not look like a sustainable growth strategy to me..

Planespotting at Larnaca airport, Cyprus

I recently made a stopover at Larnaca's new airport, in Cyprus. I was positively impressed by the new terminal, that opened recently next to the old Larnaca airport facilities. The airport is currently handling over 5 million passengers a year, and there are plans to expand capacity to 9 million, it is managed by a French-led consortium, Hermes Airports, made up of Bouygues Batiment International (22%) Egis Projects (20%), the Cyprus Trading Corporation (a local retail group-10%), Iacovou Brothers (a local contractor-10%), Hellenic Mining (10%), Vancouver Airport Services (10%), Ireland's Dublin Airport Authority (Aer Rianta International) (10%), Charilaos Apostolides (a local construction company-5%) and Nice Côte d'Azur Airport (3%). This group also manages Cyprus' other airport at Paphos,

Besides its amplitude and luminosity, one of the things I liked is that at the tip of the terminal there is a large glass wall that lets you keep track of all the planes that land and take off. It is not a high-traffic airport but nevertheless you could do some interesting plane-spotting.


A colourful A-320 of Swiss charter company Edelweiss Air, getting ready to return a load of tan Swiss holidaymakers to Zurich




An Aeroflot A-320 arriving from Moscow. Aeroflot serves the large Russian community in Cyprus, which is also an important holiday destination for Russians.


A Eurocypria Boeing 737, see our previous entry on this Cypriot charter company


Aegean A-320 departing for Thessaloniki, Greece


A Cyprus Airways A-330, the company uses these aircraft in its London Heathrow route


A British Airways Boeing 767 departing for London Heathrow. Besides being a former British possession, Cyprus is a traditional holiday destination for British tourists