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Frankfurt International Airport
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Frankfurt am Main Airport , known in German as Flughafen Frankfurt am Main or Rhein-Main-Flughafen is located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, southwest of the city centre. Run by Fraport, it is by far the largest airport by passenger traffic in Germany, the third largest in Europe and the eighth largest worldwide. It can be considered the busiest airport in the world when measured by the number of international destinations served.
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Encyclopedia
Frankfurt am Main Airport , known in German as Flughafen Frankfurt am Main or Rhein-Main-Flughafen is located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, southwest of the city centre. Run by Fraport, it is by far the largest airport by passenger traffic in Germany, the third largest in Europe and the eighth largest worldwide. It can be considered the busiest airport in the world when measured by the number of international destinations served. It is also the busiest airport in Europe by cargo traffic. The southern side of the airport, Rhein-Main Air Base, was a major airlift base for the United States from 1947 until late 2005, when it was acquired by Fraport.
There are plans to expand Frankfurt Airport with a fourth runway and a new Terminal 3. First modifications to the airport to make it Airbus A380 compatible are already completed, including the first building of a large A380 maintenance facility near the former U.S. Air Base. The work on the fourth runway has been delayed several times due to environmental concerns, but received zoning approval in December 2007. The runway could be in operation by 2010.
Frankfurt is a hub of Lufthansa, the German national carrier. Lufthansa's secondary hub is Munich Airport where many key medium and long haul routes are also available, lessening the need to overburden Frankfurt Airport. The airport also serves as a secondary hub for India's national carrier Air India.
Terminals
Frankfurt Airport has 2 terminals altogether.
Terminal 1
Terminal 1 is divided into concourses A, B and C.
Terminal 2
Terminal 2 is divided into concourses D and E. Frankfurt Airport has 45 boarding gates altogether.
A general aviation Terminal (GAT) is located south of the main runway system.
Importance
Frankfurt Airport is one of the busiest airports in the world, both in terms of passengers and cargo transported.
For 2007, Frankfurt was at eighth place in the World's busiest airports by passenger traffic (making it the third-busiest in Europe, after London Heathrow Airport and Paris's Charles de Gaulle Airport. It is also at eighth place in the World's busiest airports by cargo traffic rankings.
The Airports Council International's 2008 figures are preliminary. The following are for the months January to November 2008. These figures should be read with caution as airports around the world may experience peak travel in differing months. Year-to-date growth statistics may be a poor representation of full-year growth, and may be subject to major changes as time progresses.
Access
Public transport
There are two railway stations at Frankfurt Airport: one for regional trains and one for long distance trains.
The Airport regional railway station at Terminal 1 provides access to the S-Bahn lines S8 and S9 which depart every 15 minutes during the day to Wiesbaden in the west via Rüsselsheim and Mainz and to Hanau in the east via Frankfurt Central Station, Frankfurt city centre and Offenbach am Main. The journey time to Frankfurt Central Station is 11 minutes, to the city centre (Hauptwache) 15 minutes. The first S-Bahn trains arrive at 4:28h from Frankfurt and Hanau, and at 4:29h from Mainz and Wiesbaden; the last ones depart at 1:32h to Frankfurt, at 0:29h to Wiesbaden and at 0:59h to Rüsselsheim.
Regional express trains to other destinations like Saarbrücken in the west, Koblenz down the Rhine valley to the north, or Würzburg in the east also call at the Regional Railway Station, as do some long distance trains, especially at night when the Long Distance Railway Station is closed.
The Airport long distance railway station was opened in 1999. It is the end point of the new-build Cologne-Frankfurt high-speed rail line, which links southern Germany to the Ruhrgebiet, the Netherlands and Belgium via Cologne at speeds up to . All ICE trains between Cologne and southern Germany stop at Frankfurt Airport, taking slightly less than an hour from Cologne. About 10 trains per hour depart in all directions.
The station is squeezed in between the A3 and the four-lane Bundesstraße B43, linked to Terminal 1 by a building that bridges the Autobahn. Arriving railway passengers can check in right at the train station for about 60 airlines.
Deutsche Bahn operates the AIRail Service in conjunction with Lufthansa, American Airlines and Emirates. The service operates to the central stations of Bonn, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Freiburg, Karlsruhe, Leipzig, Hamburg, Hannover, Mannheim, Munich, Nuremberg, Stuttgart and to Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe.
Various transport companies provide bus services to the airport.
Car and taxi
Frankfurt Airport is located in the Frankfurt City Forest and directly connected to a Autobahn intersection called Frankfurter Kreuz where the A3 and A5 meet. It takes a 10-15 minutes ride by car or taxi to get to Frankfurt Central Station or the city centre. A taxi ride costs approximately € 25 or slightly more.
There are multi-level parking garages along the terminals, mostly underground, for passengers coming with their own car. A long term holiday parking lot is located south of the runways and connected with a shuttle bus to the terminals.
Ground transportation statistics
In 2006, 29.5% of the 12,299,192 passengers whose air travel originated in Frankfurt came by private car, 27.9% came by rail, 20.4% by taxi, 11.1% parked their car at the airport for the duration of their trip, 5.3% came by bus, and 4.6% arrived with a rental car.
History
The Rhein-Main Airport and Airship Base opened in 1936 and was the second-largest airport in Germany (after Tempelhof Airport in Berlin) through World War II.
Plans for a new airport in the south of Frankfurt existed since before 1930, but they were not realized due to the Great Depression. After 1933 the plans were revived by the Nazi regime and they started the construction of the airport. Initially the airport was the main base for the airships LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin and LZ 129 Hindenburg, but the regular flights were discontinued after the Hindenburg disaster in 1937.
During World War II the airport saw military use; from August to November 1944 the concentration camp Walldorf existed close to the airport where female prisoners were forced to work for the airport.
After the war, it served as the main West German operations base for the United States Air Force's contribution to the Berlin Airlift. Since the main runway deteriorated due to the heavy use, a second runway was constructed during this time. The German Lufthansa finally recommenced their flights from Frankfurt in 1955.
The airport did not emerge as a major international hub until 1972, when its new passenger terminal (now Terminal 1) opened. The runways were extended to 3,000 meters in 1957 and further extended to 3,900 meters in the following years. A new terminal building was opened in 1958. In 1962 it was decided to build an even larger terminal building (Terminal Mitte), planned for 30 million passengers per year. The works on this terminal began in 1965 and it was opened to the public in 1972.
Planning for a new runway (18 West) began in 1973. This project spawned massive protests by residents and environmentalists. While the protests and related lawsuits where unsuccessful in preventing the construction of the runway, the "Startbahn West" protests were one of the major crystallization points for the German environmentalist movement of the 1980s. The protests even continued after the runway had been opened in 1984.
Work on a new Terminal building began in 1990; the Terminal 2 was opened in 1994. The new railway station at the airport was inaugurated in 1999.
The Rhein-Main Air Base of the US Air Force was closed in 2005 and the property passed to Frankfurt airport.
Structure and function
Frankfurt Airport has two main passenger terminals, which are connected by corridors as well as by people movers and buses.
Airlines and Destinations
| Destinations by Region |
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- Domestic
- Germany - Berlin-Tegel, Bremen, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Friedrichshafen, Hamburg, Hanover, Heringsdorf [begins 2 May], Hof, Leipzig, Munich, Münster, Nuremberg, Paderborn, Stuttgart
- International
- Africa
- North Africa - Agadir, Alexandria, Algiers, Cairo, Casablanca, Djerba, Hurghada, Khartoum, Luxor, Marsa Alam, Monastir, Sharm el-Sheikh, Tripoli, Tunis
- Southern Africa - Cape Town, Johannesburg, Luanda, Windhoek
- Central Africa - Malabo
- East Africa - Addis Ababa, Asmara, Mahe [begins 29 March], Mauritius, Mombasa
- West Africa - Abuja, Accra, Boa Vista, Lagos, Sal
- Asia
- Central Asia - Almaty, Ashgabat, Astana, Kabul, Tashkent
- South Asia - Ahmedabad [begins 29 March], Bangalore, Chennai, Colombo, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Malé, Mumbai, Pune
- Southeast Asia - Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore
- East Asia - Beijing-Capital, Guangzhou, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Nagoya-Centrair, Nanjing, Osaka-Kansai, Seoul-Incheon, Shanghai-Pudong, Taipei, Tokyo-Narita
- Southwest Asia - Abu Dhabi, Aleppo, Amman, Bahrain, Baku, Beirut, Damascus, Dammam, Doha, Dubai, Jeddah, Kuwait, Riyadh, Sana'a, Tbilisi, Tehran-Imam Khomeini, Tel Aviv
- Europe - Alicante, Almería, Amsterdam, Ankara, Antalya, Araxos [begins 5 May], Athens, Barcelona, Belgrade, Bergen, Bilbao, Billund, Birmingham, Bologna, Bristol, Brussels, Bucharest-Otopeni, Budapest, Burgas, Catania, Chisinau, Copenhagen, Corfu, Cluj-Napoca, Dalaman [begins 20 April], Dublin, Dubrovnik, Edinburgh, Faro, Florence, Fuerteventura, Funchal, Gdansk, Geneva, Gothenburg-Landvetter, Graz, Helsinki, Heraklion [begins 5 April], Ibiza, Innsbruck, Istanbul-Atatürk, Istanbul-Sabiha Gökçen, Izmir, Jerez de la Frontera, Katowice, Kavala, Kazan, Kiev, Kos [begins 29 April], Kraków, Krasnodar, La Palma, Lamezia Terme, Lanzarote, Larnaca, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Linz, Lisbon, Ljubljana, London-City, London-Heathrow, Luxembourg, Lvov, Lyons, Madrid, Mahon [begins 3 May], Malta-Luqa, Manchester, Marseilles, Milan-Linate, Milan-Malpensa, Minsk, Moscow-Sheremetyevo, Moscow-Domodedovo, Basel/Mulhouse/Freiburg, Naples [begins 10 March], Nice, Novosibirsk, Olbia [begins 4 April], Oslo, Palma de Mallorca, Paphos, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Perm, Podgorica, Ponta Delgada [begins 5 April], Porto, Pristina, Poznan, Prague, Reykjavik, Rhodes [begins 18 April], Rhodes [begins 18 April], Riga, Rome-Fiumicino, Rostov, Rzeszów [begins 27 April], Salzburg, Samara, Sarajevo, Saratov, Simferopol [begins 9 May], Sofia, Southampton, Split, Stavanger, Stockholm, St Petersburg, Tallinn, Tenerife-Reina Sofia, Thessaloniki, Tirana, Toulouse, Turin, Tuzla, Ufa, Valencia [begins 29 March], Varna, Venice-Marco Polo, Verona, Vienna, Vilnius, Warsaw, Wroclaw, Yekaterinburg, Zagreb, Zakynthos, Zaragoza, Zürich
- Americas
- North America
- Canada - Calgary, Halifax, Montréal, Ottawa, Toronto-Pearson, Vancouver, Whitehorse
- Caribbean - Antigua, Barbados, Grenada, Havana, Holguin, Montego Bay, Puerto Plata, Punta Cana, Samana, Santo Domingo, Tobago, Varadero
- Mexico - Cancun, Mexico City
- United States - Anchorage, Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Fairbanks, Houston-Intercontinental, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, New York-JFK, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland(OR), San Francisco, Seattle, Washington,D.C.
- Central America - San José de Costa Rica
- South America - Caracas, Buenos Aires-Ezeiza, Porlamar, Recife, Salvador da Bahia, São Paulo-Guarulhos, Santiago de Chile
- Oceania - Sydney
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Terminal 1
Terminal 1 opened on 14 March 1972, called Terminal Mitte (Central Terminal) back then for being in the middle of the runways, and between the original terminal in the east and the cargo area in the west. It was designed in a modern style for the period, with polished silver interiors and corrugated walls.
The terminal is functionally divided into three levels, the departure level in the upper deck with the check-in counters, the arrival level with the baggage claim areas at ground level and, underneath, a distribution level with access to the (regional) train station and the underground and multistorey parkings. Departure and arrivals levels have both separate street approaches. A bus station is located at arrivals level. Parallel to the terminal, on the other side of the street, are a hotel and an office building ("FAC" = Frankfurt Airport Center). The three level deep underground parking garages are beneath those buildings. The tracks of the train station run between the terminal as such and the range of office and hotel buildings.
The land side of Terminal 1 is 420 meters long. Horizontally it is divided into three areas called A, B, and C.
It is divided into three concourses. Lufthansa and its Star Alliance partners currently dominate all of Terminal 1.
Concourse A
Concourse B
Concourse C
Terminal 2
Concourse D
Concourse E
Lufthansa First Class Terminal
Lufthansa maintains a separate First Class Terminal at Frankfurt Airport for the use of its first class passengers. The terminal is exclusively available to passengers flying Lufthansa First Class or Lufthansa's Miles & More HON Circle members, that depart with a flight operated by Air Dolomiti, Austrian Airlines Group, Lufthansa, Lufthansa Regional or SWISS. Passengers flying other Star Alliance partners in First Class have no access to the First Class Terminal. The terminal has 200 staff for around 300 passengers per day, and provides individualized security screening and customs facilities, valet parking, a white-linen restaurant, a cigar room and bubble baths. Passengers clear exit immigration controls in the terminal and then are driven from the terminal directly to their aircraft by a chaffeured Mercedes S-Class or Porsche Cayenne. The commercial success of the FCT at Frankfurt has led Lufthansa to plan the opening of a similar facility at Munich International Airport.
Other features and amenities
Frankfurt has two cargo terminals, North and South, as well as a separate General Aviation Terminal on the south side of the airport. There is also a Sheraton hotel adjacent to Terminal 1. Terminal 1 also has a full-service German Post Office and a DHL office open to the public.
Incidents
On 22 May 1983 during an airshow at the Rhein-Main Air Base, a Canadian RCAF F-104 Starfighter crashed onto a nearby road, hitting a car and killing all passengers, a vicar's family of 5. The pilot was able to eject.
In 1988 the first leg of Pan Am Flight 103 (a Boeing 747) took off from Frankfurt. About half of the passengers and baggage were from other flights and had changed planes to Flight 103 at Heathrow Airport to continue to New York. A bomb exploded on the aircraft above the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all the passengers on board. The bomb is believed to have been planted by Libyan terrorists.
In September 2007, German authorities arrested three suspected Islamic terrorists for plotting a "massive" terror attack, which posed "an imminent threat" to Frankfurt Airport and the US Air Force base in Ramstein.
See also
External links
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