Departure
98%
vs 95% ▲ 3
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Castellón-Costa Azahar Airport lies inland from Castellón de la Plana on Spain's Costa Azahar, between the villages of Vilanova d'Alcolea, Benlloc and Cabanes. Built at considerable cost and opened years before it saw its first flight, the airport is now a working regional gateway offering a single long, ILS-equipped runway and scheduled services to a growing list of European destinations.
Castellón-Costa Azahar Airport (ICAO: LECH, IATA: CDT) serves the city of Castellón de la Plana in the Valencian Community. It is a relatively modern facility, privately built and operated, notable among sim pilots both for its long single runway with ILS approach and for its unusual history as one of Spain's so-called "ghost airports", sitting largely unused for several years after completion before commercial traffic finally began.
The airport is located near the villages of Vilanova d'Alcolea, Benlloc and Cabanes, inland from Castellón de la Plana in the Valencian Community. It sits within reasonable proximity to the larger international airports of Valencia and Barcelona, a fact that has been noted as a point of contention given the relatively short distances involved.
The airport has a single physical runway, 06/24, aligned roughly north-east/south-west. It is 8,853 feet long with a hard surface, lit, and equipped with an ILS on runway 06.
Pilots can expect to work Valencia Approach on 120.1 MHz and Castellon Tower on 120.675 MHz. The runway 06 approach is served by an ILS.
The airport was officially declared open by local authorities in March 2011, shortly before regional elections, by which time its total cost had reached around 150 million euros, despite there being neither airlines signed up to operate there nor government approval for operations. Commercial flights, originally due to begin on 1 April 2012, were delayed for years; reports at the time suggested the runway would need widening, and it was later reported that it would be dug up entirely. The airport became emblematic of the wasteful public spending associated with Spain's 2008-2012 financial crisis, with the operating company Aerocas found to have spent 26 million euros, a sixth of the airport's total cost, on sponsorship deals. A large statue outside the terminal, often interpreted as a likeness of the local politician Carlos Fabra who drove the airport's construction, became a further symbol of the controversy; Fabra was later sentenced to four years in prison for tax fraud in December 2014. The first flight, an Air Nostrum charter carrying the Villarreal CF football team, departed on 14 January 2014, nearly four years after the airport's formal opening. The first commercial flight to land at the airport did not occur until 15 September 2015, when Ryanair began the first regular scheduled seasonal services, to Bristol and London Stansted. The European Union subsequently opened a formal investigation into whether the airport's Canadian manager, SNC-Lavalin, and Ryanair were receiving illegal subsidies from the regional government. During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the airport was used to store a fleet of six Boeing 737 aircraft belonging to Ukraine International Airlines.
Castellón-Costa Azahar today handles scheduled and charter services from several airlines, including Iberia to Madrid and seasonally to Palma de Mallorca, Ryanair to Charleroi and London-Stansted with a range of seasonal European routes, Smartwings seasonal charters to Bratislava, Volotea to Asturias and Bilbao, and Wizz Air to Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca with seasonal services to Rome-Fiumicino. Business aviation traffic is handled through ground handling agents at the field, who coordinate parking and permits with airport management; pilots planning a visit should confirm prior permission and handling arrangements ahead of arrival.