More Operating Restrictions Loom For Frankfurt Airport

Date added: 15 January, 2012

Airlines may face not only a permanent ban on night flights at Frankfurt Airport, but also more restrictions on daytime operations following protests about noise since the 4th runway was opened in October. The state Prime Minister – who was earlier against a night time ban – now hopes Germany’s highest administrative court will uphold a lower court ruling that imposed a curfew from 11pm to 5am. When the runway opened there was an initial agreement for a curfew in return for the expansion, but the government later temporarily dropped this commitment. Protests are beginning to show their effect ahead of the 2013 elections.

More Operating Restrictions Loom For Frankfurt Airport

Jan 13, 2012 (Aviation Week)

By Jens Flottau

Airlines may face not only a permanent ban on night flights at Frankfurt Airport, but also more restrictions on daytime operations following protests about noise.

Volker Bouffier, prime minister of the state of Hesse, says in an interview that he hopes Germany’s highest administrative court will uphold a lower court ruling that imposed an 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew. His own government launched legal proceedings against an earlier ruling that limited nighttime operations, thus his statements indicate a complete about-face on the issue.

Frankfurt’s fourth runway opened late last year. Initially, the government agreed to a curfew in return for the expansion, a commitment it later temporarily dropped.

Now, protests are beginning to show their effect ahead of the 2013 elections. Not only is the Hesse government supporting the curfew again, but Bouffier also says that operational and economic factors are not the only ones determining how many flights should take place during the day. Frankfurt’s potential capacity rose from 86 to 126 aircraft movements per hour with the opening of the runway. Bouffier hints that a limit could be set below 126.

Protesters also want the curfew to be expanded to eight hours, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Airlines say this would be totally unacceptable because the existing ban is already a big burden. Authorities also have been strict about granting exemptions to the curfew. A Lufthansa Airbus A380 bound for Johannesburg had to return to the gate recently because its wheels would not have left the ground in time for the 11 p.m. curfew. It stood on the runway at 10:59 pm.

See earlier

Large weekly protests against noise at Frankfurt Airport having an effect

December 28, 2011 Every Monday 3 – 5,000 people go to Frankfurt airport to protest at the unacceptable level of noise they now find themselves subjected to, from the newly opened runway. Volker Bouffier, governor of the federal state of Hesse, recently met Frankfurt Airport, as well as representatives from airlines and air traffic control, in a desperate search for ways to keep the skies above the Rhine-Main even just a bit quieter. This was a tacit admission of serious negligence. With its focus on creating growth and jobs, the state government had for years underestimated just how extensively noise from the airport expansion would impact local residents, only to discover to its shock that it may have sentenced its own voters to a life smothered in aircraft noise. Click here to view full story…

Big Protests in Frankfurt over 4th Runway

Date added: December 20, 2011

Every Monday over 1,000 people gather in Terminal 1 of Frankfurt Airport to protest against the impact of the 4th Runway which was opened on 21st October. The new runway has created noise problems for over 100,000 newresidents. 20,000 people took part in a demonstration the day before it opened. Although the authorities have (reluctantly) agreed to ban flights between 23.00 hours and 05.00 hours, a huge number of people are suffering as a result of the new runway. The runway was only built after a bitter battle with local residents and environmentalists.

Click here to view full story…

Merkel inaugurates Frankfurt airport runway

21.10.2012 (France 24)

An Airbus 319 carrying German Chancellor Angela Merkel onboard lands at the new airstrip “Landebahn Nordwest” during its inauguration at the airport in Frankfurt on October 21. The airport’s fourth airstrip was built within two and a half years and is expected to boost the airport’s capacity by 50 per cent.

An Airbus 319 carrying German Chancellor Angela Merkel onboard lands at the new airstrip “Landebahn Nordwest” during its inauguration at the airport in Frankfurt on October 21. The airport inaugurated its long-awaited fourth runway, amid protests by conservationists and local residents and a bitter row over night flights at Europe’s third-biggest airport.

Chancellor Angela Merkel was the first to use the 2.8-kilometre (1.7-mile) landings-only strip, which has taken 14 years to build at a cost of 600 million euros ($833 million), touching down in the government’s Airbus at 2:30 pm (1230 GMT).

She was welcomed by the local state premier of Hesse, Volker Bouffier, Frankfurt’s mayor Petra Roth, as well as the head of airport operator Fraport, Stefan Schulte, and Lufthansa chief executive Christoph Franz.

Amid loud whistling and jeering outside from protesters, Merkel insisted the new runway, one of Germany’s biggest infrastructure projects in recent years, would benefit not only the airport, but also the region and Germany as a whole.

“It is an expression of the future sustainability of Germany as an economic location,” she said.

Frankfurt airport, one of the most important air hubs in Europe and a key engine of growth, was of crucial importance for Germany as an export nation, Merkel said.

Hesse state premier Bouffier said that while the mammoth project had been beset by controversy, building an additional runway was “important and necessary” since it would create wealth and secure employment in the region.

But he conceded that it would also represent an additional burden for local residents in terms of noise and pollution.

The new runaway was first proposed in 1997, but construction only began in 2009.

Airport operator Fraport argues the runway is essential if Frankfurt is to keep pace with London’s Heathrow and Paris’s Charles de Gaulle.

According to Fraport, Frankfurt, which handled 53 million passengers and 2.2 million tonnes of freight last year, has been operating at the limits of its capacity for years.

Until now the airport has had a maximum capacity of 82 take-offs and landings per hour. Once the expansion is complete, it will be able to handle 126 per hour, or 700,000 per year.

Nevertheless, the new runway has been overshadowed by a decision by a German court last week to slap an injunction on take-offs and landings between 11:00 pm and 5:00 am until a dispute between local residents and airport operator Fraport can be decided by a federal court next year.

The decision has enraged airlines, not least German carrier Lufthansa whose freight unit Lufthansa Cargo is dependent on night flights.

“Freight needs the nights,” raged Lufthansa chief Christoph Franz, describing the court ruling as a “heavy blow” not only to his company but Germany as a whole.

As a result of the injunction, Lufthansa Cargo is having to reroute its flights to the Cologne/Bonn airport, which was “economically and ecologically grotesque”, Franz said.

http://www.france24.com/en/20111021-merkel-inaugurates-frankfurt-airport-runway

More Operating Restrictions Loom For Frankfurt Airport