I ve just read an article in El Pais (spanish newspaper) about a private group that wants to buy an aerodrome and turning into a proper airport to draw low cost mainly and private aviation.
https://elpais.com/economia/2018/10/16/ ... 94480.html

Thoughts? Do you think the likes of easyjet or ryanair will move to the new airport?

IMHO, I don't think the likes of EZY and FR will move to this airport (if it ever opens for commercial aviation). You can not imagine just how convenient for pax MAD is, many pax flying low cost into MAD self transfer to longhaul flights with other airlines. Any real alternative to MAD should be either closer to the city or much closer than in Casarrubio del Monte/El Álamo.

Madrid doesn't need another airport, the one it has works perfectly fine for the city and for the area's population size. When I lived in Madrid I appreciated only needing to go to one airport no matter where I went or what airline I flew; whether it was IB to LAX or FR to TLS.

Barajas is a fine airport with 4 runways and 4 terminals, one of them (T4) is quite new.
Not slot restricted.
Not congested.
Tube and trains that take you to central Madrid in 13-20 minutes.

El Álamo (I LOVE the name!) is in the middle of nowhere with ZERO public transport. Google maps estimates a 45 minutes car drive to Sol (Central Madrid)

Well luckily spain doesn't have a history for building pointless and empty airports. So we're fine and save in that regard.

FlyRow wrote:

Well luckily spain doesn't have a history for building pointless and empty airports. So we're fine and save in that regard.

FlyRow wrote:

Well luckily spain doesn't have a history for building pointless and empty airports. So we're fine and save in that regard.

Ha! love it.

I do think Barajas functions perfectly fine, has room to grow, and well serves Madrid, Europe’s largest single-airport city. However, I don’t think the idea of a commercial airport in El Álamo is completely out of left field. It would be convienient to the growing Southwest suburbs of Madrid and is closer to the well visited towns of Segovia, Ávila and Toledo.

Do I see this airport happing any time soon? No. Do I think it’s as I’ll-conceived as Ciudad Real was? No. Perhaps when Barajas needs some relief down the road, this idea will make more sense.

Whilst I agree with the other posters, and question the need of another airport. Madrid has three other usable runways around the city.

Would it be feasible to link Barajas and Torrejon (TOJ) and make it a hub of low cost flying? This would significantly impact the cost, although TOJ I believe is mostly a military base these days.

Didn't they try to get this airport open again a few years back? Didn't Ryanair have flights to there?

It's pointless to discuss the real need for infrastructures in Spain beacuse they are only built when the construction process benefits the oligarchy in charge. High speed rail, freeways, airports, you name it.

Ambitious, but not without merit. The travel time by road into Madrid is around 40 minutes compared with 20-25 minutes to Barajas. In perspective, Cuidad Real was almost 2.5 hours away. Lack of public transport can be easily remedied using busses, as occurs at LCC focused airports across Europe.

The big problem I see is costings - 148m Euro for a clean sheet airport with a 3.2km runway... no chance. Plus they are falling into a classic overbuilding scenario, you don't need 3,200m to attract LCCs in Europe. Masterplan for it eventually, sure, but 2,500m is more than enough to build, even considering the heat and altitude.

AstanaMagic wrote:

Whilst I agree with the other posters, and question the need of another airport. Madrid has three other usable runways around the city.

Would it be feasible to link Barajas and Torrejon (TOJ) and make it a hub of low cost flying? This would significantly impact the cost, although TOJ I believe is mostly a military base these days.

Some time ago they worked together cause some works (maybe clousere in a landing track) in Barajas, and both airports were linked by bus.

The thing is if both airports could operate taking into account that they are really close....I ve always thought that they require a minimun space...

Does anyone now remember Ciudad Real, which was built about 15 years ago apparently as a new Madrid airport that even attracted airlines including FR? Any potential new investor in that area had best examine that sorry carcass.

FlyRow wrote:

Well luckily spain doesn't have a history for building pointless and empty airports. So we're fine and save in that regard.

Well played!

Sheridan125 wrote:

Does anyone now remember Ciudad Real, which was built about 15 years ago apparently as a new Madrid airport that even attracted airlines including FR? Any potential new investor in that area had best examine that sorry carcass.

The airport was sold a few weeks ago to a company called CRIA, Ciudad Real International Airport, that will presumably also assume all related debts.

The new owners have many plans for it, and they hope to start commercial flights by February, 2019.

Meanwhile, cargo flights and maintenance services should begin very soon.

I don't know how much of this is true and how much is PR BS.

MAD will be expanded to 80M PAX and this year will close with 58M PAX. So there are still 22M PAX to fill.

Until MAD is at capacity I don't see the need for this second airport. Other than economic incentives, I can't think why Ryanair would like to establish a strong presence there instead of being where they are now.

Sheridan125 wrote:

Does anyone now remember Ciudad Real, which was built about 15 years ago apparently as a new Madrid airport that even attracted airlines including FR? Any potential new investor in that area had best examine that sorry carcass.

FlyRow wrote:

Well luckily spain doesn't have a history for building pointless and empty airports. So we're fine and save in that regard.

What did you think my quote refered too?

continental004 wrote:

Madrid doesn't need another airport, the one it has works perfectly fine for the city and for the area's population size. When I lived in Madrid I appreciated only needing to go to one airport no matter where I went or what airline I flew; whether it was IB to LAX or FR to TLS.

True, the current airport cannot be beaten when it comes to convenience. But maybe it can be beaten on price. This means the new airport would have to be very cheap, very low-cost oriented. This would attract airlines like Ryanair and Wizzair, who tend to pick the cheapest airport. Not EasyJet as they got a preference for the more expensive, more convenient airports.

As far as the city of Madrid needing another airport, no, it doesn't but that doesn't mean a new airport can't be succesful. After all, Dusseldorf never needed another airport as well but still Weeze opened and is being marketed as Dusseldorf Weeze. When it comes to traffic numbers, Weeze is obsolete. Dusseldorf can absorb the full traffic numbers of Weeze within it's current capacity, without expansion. However the reason Weeze exists and is being used is because it's cheaper than Dusseldorf. Why couldn't the same thing work for Madrid?

PatrickZ80 wrote:

continental004 wrote:

Madrid doesn't need another airport, the one it has works perfectly fine for the city and for the area's population size. When I lived in Madrid I appreciated only needing to go to one airport no matter where I went or what airline I flew; whether it was IB to LAX or FR to TLS.

True, the current airport cannot be beaten when it comes to convenience. But maybe it can be beaten on price. This means the new airport would have to be very cheap, very low-cost oriented. This would attract airlines like Ryanair and Wizzair, who tend to pick the cheapest airport. Not EasyJet as they got a preference for the more expensive, more convenient airports.

As far as the city of Madrid needing another airport, no, it doesn't but that doesn't mean a new airport can't be succesful. After all, Dusseldorf never needed another airport as well but still Weeze opened and is being marketed as Dusseldorf Weeze. When it comes to traffic numbers, Weeze is obsolete. Dusseldorf can absorb the full traffic numbers of Weeze within it's current capacity, without expansion. However the reason Weeze exists and is being used is because it's cheaper than Dusseldorf. Why couldn't the same thing work for Madrid?

That's definitely a good point, I'd just say that there's a bit of a difference because Weeze, even though it's branded as Düsseldorf-Weeze, is conveniently located for people from several different cities across 2 countries. In fact, Arnhem, Nijmegen and Venlo on the Dutch side as well as Duisburg and Essen on the German side are relatively large cities closer to NRN than Düsseldorf.

Meanwhile, Madrid is quite isolated in Castile, so aside from maybe Toledo an airport to the south of the city wouldn't get much additional feed.

Who knows what will happen with Ciudad Real, but now that it's gone through bankruptcy and had its construction debts wiped out, it'll probably be a very low-cost operation that might now be able to attract cargo airlines and maybe some ULCCs.