Ciudad Real Central Airport

Ciudad Real Central Airport, previously known as Don Quijote Airport and South Madrid Airport, was an international airport south of Ciudad Real in Spain. It is located over 200km from the centre of Madrid and next to the A-41 motorway, it was planned to be connected to the Madrid–Seville high-speed rail line, making it the first Spanish airport to be linked to the AVE network. Via AVE, the airport would have been 50 minutes away from either central Madrid or Córdoba, and less than two hours from Seville and Málaga. It was the first international private airport in Spain, costing €1.1bn to build.In April 2012, the airport was closed after just three years in operation, its management company having gone into receivership. It had not received scheduled flights since December 2011, when low-cost airline Vueling withdrew its last route. A BBC News magazine report suggests the airport was planned to fail by its investors, who benefited from construction contracts awarded to their own companies.FacilitiesThe airport has a single runway, 4100m long and 60m wide, one of the longest in Europe and able to accept all commercial airliners, including the Airbus A380. Part of the airport is for private and sport flight facilities. It was planned to have a maintenance area, a heliport and an industrial zone of over 8 km².