Condor Airfield

The airfield was closed and repurposed due to its acquisition and redevelopment by the automotive company Fiat. The land was converted into a specialized automotive proving ground, which required a complete transformation of the site, making its function as an airport obsolete.

The site of the former Condor Airfield is now an integral and unrecognizable part of the world-renowned Nardò Technical Center (NTC). This is a high-performance automotive testing and proving ground, originally built by Fiat in 1975. Since 2012, it has been owned and operated by Porsche Engineering, a subsidiary of Porsche AG. The facility is famous for its 12.6-kilometer (7.8-mile) circular high-speed track and a 6.2-kilometer (3.9-mile) handling circuit, alongside numerous other specialized tracks for vehicle dynamics, safety, and durability testing. The original airfield's footprint has been completely absorbed into these modern testing facilities and is used for dynamic vehicle evaluations by car manufacturers from around the globe.

Condor Airfield, known locally as 'Campo di Volo Condor', was primarily a military airfield. Its history is rooted in World War II, when the Salento peninsula was of high strategic importance. It served as an auxiliary or satellite airfield for the Italian Air Force (Regia Aeronautica) and was likely used by the German Luftwaffe during their presence in Southern Italy. The name 'Condor' may be a reference to this period. After the war, it saw limited use, likely for general aviation and light aircraft, but it never developed into a commercial or significant civil airport. Its operations were basic, consisting of a simple unpaved or grass runway typical of auxiliary fields from that era.

None. The prospect of reopening Condor Airfield as an airport is effectively zero. The site is a highly secure, privately owned, and extremely valuable industrial asset for Porsche and the global automotive industry. Its current function as a state-of-the-art proving ground is its sole purpose. There are no plans, discussions, or logical reasons to convert this high-tech facility back into an airfield.