The current Environment Minister of the Government of Aragon, Manuel Blasco from Teruel, has recognized more than once the error of describing as a “scrapyard” what almost two decades ago was supposed to become a facility for recycling airplanes next to the capital of Teruel. By 2024, Teruel airport – largely supported by public resources from the Investment Fund, FITE – faces a phase in which it is complementing its role in the circular economy with the promotion of innovative business projects, from the design of ports for flying taxis ready to launch HAPS drones or hangars for stratospheric airships.
With 5.5 million square meters, the infrastructure – the result of the vision of the socialists Javier Velasco and Simón Casas in the mid-2000s – will employ a thousand people in the near future, to which we will have to add around 1,800 indirect jobs. “It is the largest generator of employment in the province of Teruel,” highlights its director and manager, Alejandro Ibrahim.
The latest project to take shape has been that of the firm Vertiports Network, which plans to allocate 4.5 million euros to promote the so-called vertiports, from which to control the arrivals and departures of electric air taxis that could provide services in the cities. The implementation of this project at the Teruel airport has the support of the Government of Aragon, which through the Just Transition Fund – with European financing – will help Vertiports with 600,000 euros.
The company’s objective, as stated by its co-founder and executive director, Mariano de Diego, is that before the end of 2026 they will be “launching an air taxi service in a Spanish city.”
“We are an innovative airport,” explains Alejandro Ibrahim. When we started, aircraft recycling was very new; Currently, we have, for example, air taxis, which already operate in several countries with investments of billions. There are new options that are emerging in the sector and we, as with PLD Space [la empresa encargada de lanzar al espacio el cohete Miura 5] “In due course, we adapt.”
Meanwhile, the construction of a stratospheric zeppelin hangar has just been awarded for 40 million euros, financed with FITE funds and intended for the provision of telecommunications and space research services. The Swiss firm Sceye, manufacturer of zeppelin-type high-altitude platform stations (HAPS, High Altitude Pseudo-Satellites), set its sights on Teruel airport some time ago. This summer, the aerospace company completed a daytime flight in the stratosphere while remaining over an operating zone, a “critical milestone” toward the goal of flights that, thanks to solar energy, can last months or even years. Teruel could release the first stratoport of Spain in 2026.
Another firm in the aerospace sector, in this case the British Elson Space, will manage a 1,500 square meter warehouse for 25 years where it plans to build, launch and pilot HAPS drones. During the first years of activity, it will carry out an initial research phase and from 2028 it plans to operate with a staff of around 34 engineers and technicians. Its founder, Andy Elson – a British businessman and adventurer who has worked alongside Silicon Valley multinationals with isobaric cameras and breaking altitude records in balloons – has pointed out that the province is an ideal location for aerospace activities due to the surrounding climate. . He has gone so far as to assure that the “Teruel airport will be the Cape Canaveral of stratospheric flights.”
Was this aerospace evolution planned? “Everything is emerging, it is a technological sector that is growing. We have been able to adapt well to new needs and focus on the industrial part, not on the passenger flights part,” says Ibrahim.
Reinforcement of aircraft recycling
But the Teruel infrastructure does not forget its original role of recycling airplanes. Thus, in January the consortium formalized the award of eight hectares to Aviation Internacional Recycling (AIR), belonging to the López Soriano group, to install its announced aircraft dismantling plant. The general concession is for a period of 40 years, plus 10 extendable years and an annual fee of 153,670 euros, and the first two years are exempt from the fee for the construction of the works, the installation and the management of the activity license, among others. initial questions.
AIR will build the recycling hangar, the platform, facilities and equipment with its own resources with an investment of 21.8 million euros in the next 5 years and will create, according to its forecasts, 50 jobs. This firm was the only applicant for the exploitation of the plot, which is part of a Project of General Interest of Aragon (PIGA) that will extend the airport facilities by 195 hectares added to the current extension.
In parallel, the airport has begun work on the expansion of the phase III platform by 37,000 square meters, with 6 months of execution, and the phase V field, 15 months of execution, which includes access to the PIGA lands. . The tender specifications established that the eight hectares tendered will be used in the new PIGA for activities related “to the circular economy of aircraft use, to the dismantling and recycling of aircraft, their processes, materials management, their development and innovation. ”.
According to the project that López Soriano announced in May 2023 and subsequently requested from the Government of Aragon for the Teruel airport, the company plans to build a 10,000 square meter hangar and enable a field in which, among other tasks, research on “composite materials”, a typology that is currently incompletely recycled. The company’s objective is to develop a technology capable of reusing these now wasted components. As indicated at that time, the workforce will grow in the medium term to 90 employees.
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