Ghost airports spring up around Europe - in pictures

The luggage hall is seen at the airport in Lodz, Poland. Poland is not the only country in Europe to have built airports that struggle to attract flights. Around 80 airports in Europe attract fewer than 1 million passengers a year, and about three-quarters of those are in the red, according to industry body Airports Council International. Kacper Pempel / Reuters

An exterior view of the departure hall at the airport in Lodz. One airport in eastern Spain, open for three years, has so far received not a single flight. Kacper Pempel / Reuters

Passenger stairs are seen in front of the airport in Lodz. Poland is often touted by Brussels as one of the most efficient users of EU aid, and there is no suggestion the country used EU airport money corruptly. Kacper Pempel / Reuters

A woman walks outside the main entrance to the departure hall at the airport in Lodz. Spokespeople at some airports said the projects could be considered a success because they were creating jobs, bringing in tourists, and driving investment in the regional economy. But it is clear mistakes were made in Poland, planning officials and aviation executives say. The whole experience raises questions about how the government will handle the next big injection of EU money, which it expects to be 82 billion euros over the next seven years. Kacper Pempel / Reuters

An employee walks at the airport in Lodz. The problem is most striking at the recently rebuilt Lodz passenger terminal, where passenger numbers in 2013 fell almost one million short of forecasts, according to European Commission documents examined by Reuters. Kacper Pempel / Reuters

A service van is seen in front of the airport in Lodz. On a relatively busy day this summer, just four flights arrived and four departed. In between, the place was almost deserted. In the early afternoon a single passenger, a woman in a blue-and-white striped T-shirt, sat in a 72-seat waiting area. Kacper Pempel / Reuters

People walk to the check-in desk area at the airport in Lodz. Between 2007 and 2013, the European Union promised funding to help build and upgrade 12 Polish airports. Some of the projections underlying the plans were highly ambitious. The government declined to detail its predictions for passenger numbers. But figures for three of the airports – Lodz, Rzeszow and Lublin – are contained in letters on a related topic sent by the European Commission to the Polish foreign minister. The letters show Polish authorities projected combined passenger numbers for the airports to be more than 3 million passengers a year. In 2013, the actual number was just over 1.1 million. Kacper Pempel / Reuters

A plane is seen landing on the tarmac through the window of the control tower at the airport in Lodz. The airport with the biggest projected traffic was in Lodz. In its heyday, the city was a thriving textile manufacturing center. Now, many of the elegant 19th-century merchant’s houses lining the main drag, Piotrkowska Street, are crumbling. Jerzy Kropiwnicki, mayor of Lodz between 2002 and 2010, wanted to attract foreign investment and tourists. The city had a small airport that handled domestic flights; but Kropiwnicki felt a big international terminal would revive the local economy. Kacper Pempel / Reuters

A customer stands near a rental car kiosk at the airport in Lodz. The airport commissioned a feasibility study from advisory firm Ernst & Young (EY), published in November, 2009. EY predicted a minimum of 1.042 million passengers in 2013 for Lodz. That was less than the government forecast but many more than the 353,633 who actually passed through the airport last year. EY declined to comment. Kacper Pempel / Reuters

The main hall area is seen at the airport in Lodz. Kacper Pempel / Reuters

Passenger stairs are seen reflected in the glass of the departure hall at the airport in Lodz. Kacper Pempel / Reuters

Gleaming new airport terminals echo to the sound of empty concourses and spend millions trying to attract airlines after they were built thanks to European Union funding.