Corvera Airport

Has anyone heard anything about this article:

http://www.tumbit.com/news/articles/5525-corvera-airport-on-hold.html

It sugests that Corvera airport will not open for security reasons.

Only 10 days behind the news !

http://vegamediapress.net/not/1585/queda_bloqueada__sine_die__la_apertura_del_aeropuerto_de_corvera_por_cuestiones_de_seguridad_aerea/

According to this it's blocked  'sine die ' , forever !

So all that money spent on Corvera airport and now it won't open!  No wonder Spain has a financial crisis.   You woould have thought they would have checked the basics before they started building.

If they just wanted to keep people in work they could have put in our floodwater pipes & re-surfaced the road. Or helped with the rebuild  after the earthquake.

 To be honest its unbelievable that you could complete an airport,  do all the test flights, negotiate staff moving, state you are going to start flights in Summer 2012 and then decide in May 2012 that the airport isn't going to open!  There were many times before the completiion of the airport  that could have been decided.  What a total waste of money and time.

 Isn't this just speculation?  I can't find anything about this in La Verdad, La Opinion or ABC.  Surely they would have had something about it if it was more than just a rumour?  There are still lots of flights coming into Alicante, and they have said that their taxes will be lower at Corvera, so surely there is still a possibility that it could all go ahead?

Sue

 If you look at http://vegamediapress.net/not/1585/queda_bloqueada__sine_die__la_apertura_del_aeropuerto_de_corvera_por_cuestiones

you can read the full article but you will have to put it in a translator if you do not read spanish.

 Yes, I read the article earlier, however the point I am making is that this was an anonymous source and it may just be a rumour.  I would have thought there would have been something in one of the other papers if it was more than speculation. John has just pointed out that there wasn't anything in Costa Blanca News either - and they love a good, scare-mongering story! 

Sue

Thank you mobailey for repeating the address of the article re the non opening of Corvera airport.

I think I have a problem with the translation as I read it to say in the last paragraph that the Spanish Government had underwritten the project to the tune of €200 million. I hope I am wrong because it appears that the investors  will get their money back from this guarantee. Can someone who can read Spanish properly please either confirm or deny this interpretation

Thanks

It says that the 'technical bankruptcy' of the region of Murcia before next summer is now compounded by the 200million bank guarantee which was Guaranteed by the Autonomous region . This means that the Regional government will be liable for the debt if the constructors can¡t pay . Which they won't if the airport doesn't open.

Thanks for the correction.

Now, as I understand it, a certain Official in Murcia thought it would be a good idea to build an airport near his city even though there was a perfectly adequate one about 20 kilometers away and a much bigger one only about  80 kilometers away.  Then he said that it would be a privately funded one so that if it made a profit, all the profit would go to the investors of which he was one. Then just to make it more attractive for the investors he said that the Region would underwrite the whole project to the tune of €200 MILLION which meant that if it was not finished or it did not make a profit then the Region would pay for everything!  Nobody bothered to check to see if the place where the airport was going to be built was in the right direction for wind, mountains, earthquakes etc. so that Intercontiental planes could fly into it. Also nobody did a feasability study to see if the region would have enough new traffic for  Corvera if San Javier and Alicante were to remain open.

So far so good.

As time progressed he found out that maybe his "baby" was not going so well, so he tries to get the Airport Authorities to close the perfectly good airport at San Javier as there would not be enough traffic for both. This causes a lot of anguish for the employees at San Javier  airport and also the local businesses and residents.

Then we find out that a new theme park is going to be built about 30 minutes drive from this  white elephant which will attract 15 million visitors a year!  GREAT!  Only problem is, that at the time of writing, I understand that the investors are noticable by their absence. Although the foundation stone was laid this week there is no money to build the complex.

Is anyone to be held accountable for this fiasco? Will heads roll? Perhaps not, as this is Spain and nobody cares and another unusable airport joins the list.

If I am wrong will someone please explain to me where I have misunderstood the bigger picture.

Just to add to my previous comments: I have checked the expat website Murciatoday (which used to be called Simply Networking) and so far as I could see they have no mention of this story.  I know Zoe spends a lot of time looking for the latest news, and many contacts send her information, so I would have expected her to have picked up on it.

Personally I am hoping that this is only rumour and that Corvera Airport does open as a) it will be more convenient for us than Alicante and b) if flights are cheaper from there it will help my pension go further!

Sue