{"id":98623,"date":"2026-01-21T01:00:40","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T06:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=98623"},"modified":"2026-01-20T10:20:56","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T15:20:56","slug":"qotd-white-elephant-airports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2026\/01\/21\/qotd-white-elephant-airports\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: White elephant airports"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Few things capture modern planning like a multibillion-dollar airport no one’s entirely sure will have any planes. Enter Western Sydney International Airport (WSI), Australia’s shiny $5 billion gamble at Badgerys Creek. It’s a development so hyped it already has merch, an anticipated metro line, and a better skincare routine than most of us, despite rumors it may spend its first year servicing only freight and the occasional confused ibis.<\/p>\n

If history teaches us anything, it’s that airports, like wrinkle creams which cost the GDP of a small country but couldn’t iron out a bedsheet, can be wildly overpromised and underdelivered. Western Sydney’s runway might yet join the vainglorious global herd of White Elephant Airports: majestic, expensive, and standing alone in a field wondering where everyone went.<\/p>\n

Let’s take a safari.<\/p>\n

Mirabel: Montreal’s Monument to Inconvenience<\/strong><\/p>\n

Built in 1975, Mirabel International was meant to replace Montreal’s Dorval Airport and usher in a new aviation era. Instead, it became the architectural embodiment of “We should’ve checked the map”. Located more than 50 kilometers from the city, it was so unpopular that passengers would rather fling themselves onto dogsleds than make the commute.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Mirabel stopped pretending to be an airport and transitioned into its second act: a car-racing track and film set. Somewhere in Quebec there’s probably still a baggage carousel being used as a wedding dance floor.<\/p>\n

Ciudad Real: A Billion-Euro Garage Sale<\/strong><\/p>\n

Spain saw Mirabel and said, “Hold my sangria”. Ciudad Real International Airport opened in 2009 with a \u20ac1.1 billion price tag, dreams of high-speed rail links, and the confidence of a Bachelor<\/em> contestant in week one. Within three years, it had no flights, no buyers, and no shame.<\/p>\n

It was eventually auctioned for \u20ac10,000, less than a parking space in Bondi or a bottle of champagne at a Sydney rooftop bar. One imagines the bidding process was just two blokes shrugging in a room and someone whispering, “Ten grand and a paella voucher?”<\/p>\n

Berlin Brandenburg: German Efficiency, But Make It Chaos<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you’ve ever wanted to see what happens when a nation famous for precision tries on farce, just pay a visit to Berlin Brandenburg Airport. Construction began in 2006, with an opening scheduled for 2011. By 2015, it was such a national embarrassment that Berliners stopped making jokes about British plumbing to recover emotionally.<\/p>\n

In 2020, it finally launched amid the global COVID pandemic, after delays caused by faulty fire systems, suspicious cables, and the ghost of every German engineer pacing in dismay.<\/p>\n

Nicole James, “Australia’s New Albino Elephant Sanctuary (Now with Parking)”, The Freeman<\/em><\/a>, 2025-10-16.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Few things capture modern planning like a multibillion-dollar airport no one’s entirely sure will have any planes. Enter Western Sydney International Airport (WSI), Australia’s shiny $5 billion gamble at Badgerys Creek. It’s a development so hyped it already has merch, an anticipated metro line, and a better skincare routine than most of us, despite rumors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[331,6,1118,84,7,57,41],"tags":[878,156,711,325,335,202],"class_list":["post-98623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia","category-cancon","category-germany","category-government","category-history","category-humour","category-quotations","tag-berlin","tag-fail","tag-infrastructure","tag-montreal","tag-spain","tag-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-pEH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98623"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100454,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98623\/revisions\/100454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}