Abandoned Athens airport.
Discussion
Bizarre, what a waste of an airfield and several planes and no doubt countless vehicles and other equipment!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23177947
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellinikon_Internation...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23177947
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellinikon_Internation...
Apologies for the Daily Mail link, but take a look at this one in Spain - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2170886/Sp...
I have an office in Athens and see this sorry sight regularly. Apparently there is now a redevelopment plan for the site, but no one has any money to execute it. Given the huge numbers of empty commercial properties of all types around Athens right now I doubt anyone will be pressing the go button on this for a good few years!
In a way, Athens airport sums up a key aspect of what went wrong in Greece. It was probably not an unreasonable idea to re-site their main International airport given that the old one was capacity limited, a bit old and too close to the centre of Athens. However, having first used the old airport as a conference and expo centre (something it was actually quite good at!) they built a new expo centre out by the new airport..... where there are bugger all hotels! Plus, conference visitors are now faced with a daily schlep out to the centre and back if they want to enjoy Athens night life.
As to the busses, well, when you have a new airport you want nice new busses too don't you? The borrowing paid for it all! So, hundreds of reasonably serviceable (older) busses parked up and being vandalised bit by bit. Not sold to Africa or anything like that. No attempt to recover any value, just parked up and left to rot.
Now if you want an even bigger scandal, have a look at what has happened to the various Stadia from the Athens Olympics....
In a way, Athens airport sums up a key aspect of what went wrong in Greece. It was probably not an unreasonable idea to re-site their main International airport given that the old one was capacity limited, a bit old and too close to the centre of Athens. However, having first used the old airport as a conference and expo centre (something it was actually quite good at!) they built a new expo centre out by the new airport..... where there are bugger all hotels! Plus, conference visitors are now faced with a daily schlep out to the centre and back if they want to enjoy Athens night life.
As to the busses, well, when you have a new airport you want nice new busses too don't you? The borrowing paid for it all! So, hundreds of reasonably serviceable (older) busses parked up and being vandalised bit by bit. Not sold to Africa or anything like that. No attempt to recover any value, just parked up and left to rot.
Now if you want an even bigger scandal, have a look at what has happened to the various Stadia from the Athens Olympics....
Fond memories of Athens Airport...my Uncle used to be the Ground Ops Manager for Sabena when I was a youngster...And my godfather was, for some time, GM of Olympic Airways Catering division, so i used to always get a good look/tour around when I was there.
Stopped recently for a look around on the back perimeter road, but didn't have my camera with me unfortunately...shame to see it like this now.
Stopped recently for a look around on the back perimeter road, but didn't have my camera with me unfortunately...shame to see it like this now.
CharlieCrocodile said:
Apologies for the Daily Mail link, but take a look at this one in Spain - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2170886/Sp...
ahhh great to see EU taxpayer's money at work 
Simpo Two said:
irocfan said:
ahhh great to see EU taxpayer's money at work
Ah but it provided 'jobs' for the people who built it... so the socialists are happy - even though they were unsustainable pretend jobs paid for by borrowing.The DailyWail said:
Built in 2008, it opened fully in 2009 at a total private cost of €1.1billion
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