# Ciudad Real International Airport (CQM)

> Ciudad Real, ES · IATA: CQM · ICAO: LERL · Medium Airport

## Quick Facts

| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| IATA | `CQM` |
| ICAO | `LERL` |
| City | Ciudad Real |
| Country | ES |
| Type | Medium Airport |
| Cargo | ❌ |
| GPS | 38.85648, -3.96994 |

## Description

Ciudad Real (IATA: CQM, ICAO: LERL) is worth knowing about for its infrastructure rather than its traffic: around 4,000 metres of runway, among the longest in Europe, and acres of empty apron in Castilla-La Mancha. Built for roughly 1.1 billion euros and opened in 2008, the airport closed in 2012 when its operator went bankrupt and spent years as Spain's best-known ghost airport before private buyers reopened it in 2019. Today the site lives mainly on aircraft storage and dismantling plus executive aviation; a handful of cargo flights have used it, but there is no permanent freight terminal, resident handling agent or standing customs post. That makes ad-hoc widebody freighter charters technically feasible here while requiring case-by-case arrangement. In 2026 the operator announced a 25-year agreement with Sabena Technics to establish an aircraft maintenance base, projected to create some 150 jobs within five years and service around a hundred aircraft annually. Scheduled air freight for the region moves through Madrid-Barajas (MAD) about 200 km north, with Zaragoza (ZAZ) as the alternative for pure freighter work; road access runs via the A-41 and A-4, and the Madrid–Seville high-speed line passes alongside the site.

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*Freight Academy — Airport Profile: [https://www.freight-academy.com/en/information/airports/ciudad-real-international-airport-cqm](https://www.freight-academy.com/en/information/airports/ciudad-real-international-airport-cqm)*

*Markdown mirror: [https://www.freight-academy.com/api/md/airports/en/ciudad-real-international-airport-cqm](https://www.freight-academy.com/api/md/airports/en/ciudad-real-international-airport-cqm)*

*LLM-Summary (JSON): https://www.freight-academy.com/api/v1/airports/ciudad-real-international-airport-cqm/llm-summary*