Spain’s new ‘spaceport’ could create 2,800 new jobs

Large aircraft parked at Spain's Teruel airport. Photo: Adobe Stock

Teruel airport in Spain looks set for major expansion, as the designated host of a number of major aerospace projects.

At a recent conference, it was announced that PDL Space plans to operate satellite micro launchers from the little-known airport, located some 300km east of the capital Madrid.

Another company, Sceye, plans to install stratospheric spacecraft at the airport, which, since coming into commission ten years ago, has been used primarily as a maintenance centre for large aircraft.

The expansion announcements were made during the event, Teruel: a strategic enclave for the aerospace industry in the world, at which the President of Aragon, Javier Lambán, said 2,800 direct and indirect jobs could be generated through the raft of activities planned at the airport.

In his speech, Lambán added that the expansion of the maintenance work at the airport was crucial in terms of Spain’s aeronautical PERTE (a strategic project for economic recovery and transformation) and that the airport’s very existence was testament to the work of two politicians “who in their day glimpsed the possibilities that aeronautics could have, Javier Velasco and Simón Casas, who bet on the airport against all odds because absolutely nobody believed them”.

Although areas of funding were not specified, the Spanish government announced last year that it would mobilise €2.2 billion as part of PERTE, and expects to achieve a total of €4.5 billion with private collaboration, linked to the aerospace industry.