Yahoo Autos World's Abandoned Airports Offer An Eerie Journey Through Bad Decisions And Worse Wars
Airports seem like the sort of large, hulking and expensive buildings that will be there forever. There’s no way something so monumentally huge and costly to construct would ever just be cast aside. But there are a ton of lonesome airports around the world, ones that once hosted international flights full of diplomats, celebrities, business people and holiday-seekers, to only now rot away.
Some of these empty airports offer a glimpse into tense geopolitical situations, left rotting or pounded into dirt by war, while others are simply the result of glut and greed, now serving as locations for for huge Hollywood film shoots. There are dozens of empty airports around the world, but here are a few of the biggest and most well-known sites.
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This airport is particularly spooky looking, as it seems everyone just picked up and left one day. Which is kind of what happened.
In 1974, Turkey invaded the island of Cyprus. This invasion would divide the small island nation into the Greek-backed Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus — a country which is still not internationally recognized to this day despite taking up 36 percent of the island’s land mass. In between these two forces is a so-called United Nations “buffer zone;” a no-mans land that includes the Nicosia Airport.
Formerly the largest international airport on the island, the airport was first closed on July 15, when right-wing, pro-Greek forces staged a coup against the democratically elected leader, Archbishop Makarios. The airport was briefly opened for a few days to allow foreign nationals to flee the island right before Turkey bombed it during the July 20 invasion. Busy week for little Cyprus!
The last flight out of the airport occurred in 1977, when the United Nations forces stationed at the old airport allowed three Cyprus Airways planes to take off. Those planes, however, weren’t carrying passengers; they had been stranded by the war since 1974. Tensions have not relaxed in the 50 years since the invasion, with Turkey setting up an entire rouge nation on Cyprus by bringing in thousands of Turkish settlers. Since then, the empty airport serves as a base of UN Peacekeeper helicopters and a spot for urban explorers.
Hellenikon International Airport, Greece - Abandoned In 2001
Here’s a Greek airport with a slightly happier history. The Hellenikon International Airport closed in 2001 when the Athens International Airport opened. Built in the 1930s, the airport was the target of Allied air raids during WWII, and still it endured, expanding to cover a footprint three times the size of the country of Morocco, according to CNN. In 2004, part of the site was reclaimed and used to host the Olympics. There were plans to develop the site further into a large urban park, but the financial crisis of 2008 hit Greece particularly hard and all of those plans were lost. In 2014, a development company attempted to turn the area into a vacation destination, but it has also been waylaid by bureaucracy.
In 2020 demolition began on some of the buildings, but the site is truly huge, and there is still a small fleet of derelict Boeing aircraft on the grounds. There are plans for a small museum dedicated to the old airport and to Greece’s former national air carrier, Olympic Airways. For now, the site is full of broken glass, molding seats and empty corridors.
Yasser Arafat International Airport, Gaza - Abandoned In 2001
The Gaza Airport was more than just a travel hub — it was a symbol of hope for statehood by the Palestinian people. President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton cut the ribbon at the airport’s opening on December 14, 1998. The first plane to land at Yasser Arafat International Airport was a Palestinian Airlines flight. The pilot didn’t have a flight plan, radar or maps for the airport as it was not internationally recognized at the time, Al Jazeera reports.
The airport didn’t last long. It was closed due to rising tensions between Israel and Palestine in 2000, and Israel tore up the landing strip in 2001. Later, many of the buildings were bombed in air raids. The only building still standing is part of a mosque that was part of the airport complex.
Ciudad Real Central Airport, Spain - Abandoned In 2012
The visitor’s centre of Cuidad Real International Airport stands dormant after closing in April 2012, when all scheduled flights ceased to operate to or from it, on July 6, 2012 in Ciudad Real, Spain. The large international airport, which was completed in 2009 at a cost of 1.1 billion euros, was intended to serve both Madrid and the Andalucían coast, accessible in 50 minutes via a high speed rail link, however lack of demand driven by Spain’s economic crisis has seen closure after just three years.
Consider this airport a pallet cleanser following the very sad tale of the Gaza Airport. The Ciudad Real International Airport only operated for three years, with two airlines plotting flights to the airport. Not very impressive for a spot that cost over one billion Euros to build. The airport was designed to handle two million passengers with the possibility of taking on 10 million in the future, but only two low-budget airlines ever signed on. After closing in 2012, the airport quickly fell into disrepair, according to Simply Flying. The site opened back up in 2019 as a spot for aircraft storage and maintenance. COVID-19 shutdowns really allowed Ciudad to shine, says SF:
The month of May 2020 saw cargo flights arrive from Guangzhou in China, bringing medical equipment to help fight the pandemic.
While being a ghost airport would be bad for business on other occasions, having lots of free storage space and quiet runways is not necessarily a negative when the world needs places to park its planes. Due to its arid climate - and probably favorable economics - the airport became one of the preferred storage facilities for aircraft during the global health crisis.
Spanish carriers such as Vueling and Iberia sent their aircraft to Ciudad Real as they parked their fleets. However, the airport has also long-term hosted the liveries of South African, Aer Lingus, Virgin Atlantic, and even far-off visitors such as Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific.
Kai Tak International Airport, Hong Kong - Abandoned In 1998
This place was wild. The first recorded flights from Kai Tak International occurred in 1925, when there was far less of Kowloon City around. By the time the airport closed in 1998, it was considered one of the most difficult airports for pilots to navigate in the world. Passengers reported being able to see what folks living in high-rises were watching on television as they came in for a landing, Simply Flying reports. It didn’t help that pilots also had to tangle with a runway almost complete surrounded by ocean and mountainous terrain that forced pilots to make a 45-degree turn below 500 feet. Oh, then there were the high winds and torrential rains during the summer in the sub-tropical location. Here’s how photographer Daryl Chapman described some of the terrifying landings for CNN:
“Being at the Kai Tak car park watching airplanes land in heavy rain ccould be very worrying,” he says. “The pilots could not see the runway, and landing over Kowloon, you had to be visual with the runway.
“Some (pilots) seemed to wait a little longer than others before they aborted the landing and went around for another go. Some would appear out of the low clouds on the approach path, then power up and vanish back into the clouds.”
The scariest memory for Chapman was the landing of an Air France 747-200 freighter contending with an extremely low ceiling.
“We could hear it coming but saw no sign of the landing lights. It was dark,” he says. “It got louder and louder; then you could see the glow of the red beacon under the plane. He overshot the turn and went right over the car park and control tower as he powered up and went around for another try.”
“That was very loud and worrying, as we never saw the actual plane!”
