Frankfurt - Airport
Transport
978-3-14-100890-6 | Page 73 | Ill. 3
Overview
Frankfurt Airport is located about nine kilometres southwest of Frankfurt/Main in a large, wooded area between the towns of Kelsterbach, Raunheim, Mörfelden-Walldorf, and Zeppelinheim (Neu-Isenburg). Europe's third-largest airport by passenger numbers is also the largest employer with only one business location in Germany, employing 81,000 people (2018).
Old and new airport facilities
Originally located on the Rebstock site in Frankfurt, the airport was moved to its current location in 1936. It was the home base of the two largest German airships ("Graf Zeppelin", see district name Zeppelinheim in the map, and "Hindenburg"). Heavily damaged in the Second World War, the airport initially became property of the US Army in 1945. In 1955, it was taken over by the newly founded Flughafen AG. The ownership shares were distributed. The southern part of the airport remained in the possession of the US Army as the Rhein-Main-Air-Base. Since 1955, the airport has also been the base of Deutsche Lufthansa AG.
The operating company was renamed Fraport AG in 2001 and has carried out several structural extensions in recent years. Terminal 1, which opened in 1972, and the much smaller Terminal 2, which went into operation in 1994 and is designed for a peak capacity of ten million passengers per year, are older. In 2008, a new terminal area was opened between the two terminals to create additional handling positions for the Airbus A380. Terminal 3 has been in construction since 2015. It is built on the south side and will provide 75 aircraft parking positions when completed.
The airport has four runways. The newest runway, Northwest, was opened for flight operations in 2011.
The CargoCity air cargo area covers a total area of 149 hectares, with a further 27 hectares to be developed in the near future. In the somewhat smaller CargoCity North, perishable goods such as seafood, flowers and vegetables are stored on an area of 9000 square metres. In the southern part of the airport, which was handed over to Fraport by the US forces in 2005, is CargoCity South. The 98-hectare area is mainly home to air freight forwarding and related service and logistics companies.
The economic dimension of the airport
The approximately 81,000 employees (as of 2018) at Frankfurt Airport are spread across more than 450 companies, with just over 22,000 employed by the operating company Fraport AG. Deutsche Lufthansa AG has its headquarters in the north of the airport; in the adjacent terminals and office buildings, there are offices of the airlines and the airport operator Fraport as well as customs, some catering companies and other service providers. New office space has been created by the new building "The Squaire", which, with 140,000 square metres of rental space, has been Germany's largest office building since its completion in 2011.
In addition, the airport operator Fraport is increasingly marketing the location as a gastronomy and shopping centre. There are extensive rows of shops in both terminals with around 230 shops and services. In addition, there are about 80 gastronomic facilities.
In the immediate vicinity of the airport there are numerous other businesses whose activities are directly related to the airport. Transport, logistics and wholesale companies, for example, have settled in the neighbouring towns of Kelsterbach and Mörfelden-Walldorf.
Ecological aspects and noise emissions
Since the 1980s, expansion plans have regularly met with opposition from local residents, environmentalists and citizens' initiatives because the increasing air traffic has a not inconsiderable impact on the environment. Critics complain, above all, about the increasing noise emissions, but also about the growing land consumption and the increasing pollutant and carbon dioxide emissions. Although the engines of most aircraft have become quieter and flight paths have been laid in less populated areas, taking wind conditions into account, the high volume of flights in this densely populated zone of the Rhine-Main region is a heavy burden on local residents, who fear that their quality of life will be further impaired with every increase in flight volume.
In order to keep the environmental impact as low as possible, Fraport AG has set itself the goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 30 percent per traffic unit by 2030. In addition, an initiative "Together for the Region - Alliance for More Noise Protection 2012" is striving to reduce noise emissions. The ban on night flights from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. is one of the results of the mediation process.
Traffic volumes and transport connections
Frankfurt Airport is one of the largest airports in the world in terms of passenger and cargo volume. With more than 70 million passengers carried in 2019, it ranks third in Europe, and with more than 2 million tonnes of cargo it even leads the field. Worldwide it ranks among the top 15. Just like most airports and other members of the economy worldwide, the Frankfurt Airport was severely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. With just under 18.8 million passengers, passenger traffic in 2020 was 73.4 per cent lower than the year before.
The hub function is of particular importance for Lufthansa AG. It uses Frankfurt Airport as a hub for passengers and cargo in intercontinental traffic. For example, passengers on an A380 flight often arrive at Frankfurt Airport with up to 80 different feeder flights and change planes there.
Frankfurt Airport owes its importance as a central traffic hub in Germany and Europe to a considerable extent to its favourable geographic location at the intersection of important road and rail connections. For example, the north-south connection A5 (Hamburg-Basel) and the north-west-south-east connection A3, which links the Ruhr region with the Munich area, meet at the motorway junction "Frankfurter Kreuz". Direct motorway connections exist to the north and south-east of the airport. Around 14,700 parking spaces are available on the airport site in multi-floor car parks, underground garages, and open spaces.
Ecological aspects and noise emissions
Since the 1980s, expansion plans have regularly met with opposition from local residents, environmentalists and citizens' initiatives because the increasing air traffic has a not inconsiderable impact on the environment. Critics complain, above all, about the increasing noise emissions, but also about the growing land consumption and the increasing pollutant and carbon dioxide emissions. Although the engines of most aircraft have become quieter and flight paths have been laid in less populated areas, taking wind conditions into account, the high volume of flights in this densely populated zone of the Rhine-Main region is a heavy burden on local residents, who fear that their quality of life will be further impaired with every increase in flight volume.
In order to keep the environmental impact as low as possible, Fraport AG has set itself the goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 30 percent per traffic unit by 2030. In addition, an initiative "Together for the Region - Alliance for More Noise Protection 2012" is striving to reduce noise emissions. The ban on night flights from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. is one of the results of the mediation process.
