OK..... Lets address the points made here...BTW I am an easy Captain in Madrid ...
As far as easy pulling out of Madrid is concerned, anyone with even one eye here will tell you it was only a matter of time... The post made at the begining of this thread was spot on with the reasons for easy pulling out. If you live here you see how inefficient the country is. At every level in all aspects of life here, you can see mind blowing wastes of resources and money. To be really blunt, the last ten years has been like watching kids who have broken into a bank spending the money on sweets. Yes , they have built roads and houses etc, but drive around and you spend all your time avoiding accidents due to the mindless road planners who must have just left school constructing a road system that a chimp could have done better with. There are countless half built estates, or even just the roads for estates littered around the periphery of Madrid, built by greedy cowboys who were throwing them up with cheap european bank loans. The toxic debts from insane homeowners who took out massive loans (400-600,000 euros for a two bedroom box flat ) who were earning 25,000 euros a year and now cant pay, are only the tip of the iceberg. Private debt is the elephant in the cupboard, when that starts to surface, the counrty will go into melt down. If you live here you know about the amazing debts run up by local potato farmers who became mayors of their town and spent 160 million euros on follies like a water purification plant
for a town of 10,000 people, or the Arts centre for 100 million euros that never got finished and now lies empty.
Easy went to the government at the highest level and almost begged them to do something about the insane charges at Barajas or face this pull out. Unfortunately for everyone here, the Spanish mentality is that they are never wrong and that putting your head deeper into the sand will make the problem go away! You only have to listen to the idiots in the government trying to tell the rest of Europe that thay are not in trouble and that they are insulted that it is even suggested, to realise the game is up.
As regards Madrid airport... I'm sure the post about it being a world beater was posted by an IBERIA pilots granny, who believes the bull that her darling ,soon to be unemployed son, spins her. Anyone, even the plane spotters sat on the peri track, will tell you the truth. I dont need to repeat the observations already made, it's all true. That said, and controversially, the standard of ATC has improved immeasurably in the past six months. There are some pretty good people working there now, but its spoilt by the usless knobs that you still have there that could not get wet in a swimming pool. The ground situation is chaotic and you can spend 40 mins getting to the holding point due to not only incompetence, but bad design ( putting a holding point on a taxi way that everyone has to go past for another runway ).
As regards the closure of the base, this is very very sad. I'm not talking about the pilots so much here, but the cabin crew and office staff. Whilst it's true that the pilots have spent, in some cases, a lot of money moving here and have kids in schools etc, they will bounce back albeit worse off than before. We knew this was milk and honey and the sensible ones have been saving, not spending, for this day. However, I was in the meeting and went to work on the day of the announcement. The scences I witnessed amongst the local cabin crew were truly heart rending. For most of them, this was a good job amongst a world of unemployment that enabled them to not only live their lives but support family and friends less fortunate. They are devasted and face difficult decisions even with offers of jobs as they will not be in Spain. I have made good friends amongst them and am gutted for them.
I dont give a toss if some of what I've said offends, I've had a good time here and contributed significantly to the economy with my colleagues. Its due to the idiots in power in Spain, that now we are going. The effects will ripple out and Madrid will be all the worse for it.