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THINKING BIG IN LEIPZIG/HALLE

By Christiane Rodenbücher

No one could have dreamed in the summer of 1989 that Leipzig/Halle airport would undergo such a meteoric transformation. Back then the airport was handling 442,200 passengers and 197 tonnes of freight. Eleven years later the numbers have shot up to 2.3 million passengers and 11,300 tonnes of freight. Around DM 2 billion has been invested in the interim and the expansion is continuing even today. If the east German economy grows as planned and if the airline industry recovers swiftly, by 2010 Leipzig/Halle airport might be handling seven million passengers and 100,000 aircraft movements.

Before then there will probably be many more infrastructural changes. Today a total of 2,000 people work at the airport and in the affiliated companies, and the plan is that by 2010 a total of 8,000 jobs will exist at the airport plus a further 12,000 in the vicinity. Leipzig's situation makes it feasible to reach most European destinations in less than 100 minutes' flying time.

The transitional period in the early years following reunification was not plain sailing. "At that time there was one runway with a bockwurst stall," said Wolfgang Hesse (57), Managing Director of Leipzig/Halle GmbH, during an interview with FLUG REVUE. "Our infrastructure was not at all geared towards air traffic growth and there was no master plan." Everything was clapped-out, the streets, the railway, and as far as freight handling was concerned, the principle of "just in time" was not yet at all widespread. There were no difficulties in adapting from the air traffic point of view, according to Hesse, who before 1989 was in charge of Flight Operations at Interflug. However, it had not been easy to adapt to the changed economic underlying conditions. "Moreover, the technical facilities at the airport were extremely modest. If the air was humid, you just wouldn't believe the fog of chemical and lignite fumes that I would see there. Cat III would have stood us in good stead even then."

In 1990 baggage checks with hard x-rays ceased and the heavy walls made out of mass concrete in the entrance area were taken down. With a more friendly, glass arrivals area, a new baggage sorting system, a larger passenger handling area coupled with improvements in the airside traffic facilities, the airport has since undergone a facelift. In 1996 the new passenger terminal B was completed. In 2000, the 3,600m long intercontinental-capable new north runway then entered service, having cost around DM 800 million. Some 2.8 million cubic metres of earth had to be moved to clear the land. Like the 2,500m long southern runway, the north runway is today Cat IIIb-capable. 24-hour operations are possible on both runways.

However, operations were not as smooth back in 1990 as they are now. "At the beginning we were always trailing behind developments," explains Hesse. "It was a constant struggle to organise the airport so that everyone who wanted to fly was able to and at the same time to offer passengers comfort - romanticism was very much a scarce commodity." On top of this, the airport management was continually getting into fights over "crazy property problems", while training people was not simple either, according to Hesse. But, looking back on those years, the experience was more positive than negative. "The period was very exciting, every day there were new surprises and new challenges to be tackled."

The investment has paid off, and Leipzig/Halle is today a modern airport. The pilots' union, "Vereinigung Cockpit", selected the airport as its "Winner of the Year 2000" for its "exemplary rebuilding achievement".

In November 2001 the topping-out ceremony for the new central terminal took place. The form of the statically demanding bridge construction is intended to remind one of an aircraft wing. From 2003, check-in facilities, shops and restaurants will all be accommodated here. The first module of this future terminal building, a multi-storey car park with 2,700 parking spaces, was completed in 2000. In 2003 the new InterCity Express-capable airport station will be commissioned. The new terminal will initially have capacity for 4.5 million passengers, and once it is fully operational it will combine under one roof the three transport modes of road, rail and air. Following the first stage of construction, 45 aircraft parking places are now available, with another 15 scheduled to come online in the future.

Since the end of 2001, the first hauliers and forwarding agents have moved into the new administration building in the southern area of the airport, where initially 2600m2 of floor space is available. Completion of this building ended the first stage in the reorganisation of the freight business area. Over 80 hectares of land right next to the airport is available for its expansion.

Calculated in terms of passenger numbers, Leipzig/Halle airport is the tenth biggest commercial airport in Germany. In 2000, 47,030 flight movements were handled in "LEJ", as the airport is known in the industry. Passenger volume was 2.3 million, up 5.8% from the previous year. Included in these figures is an impressive 11.5% increase in tourist business in 2000, but a 3.4% drop in scheduled services. For 2001, with 2.2 million passengers (two-thirds of them tourists) and 43,000 flight movements, the figures are not so good.

According to the airport, the approximately 4% fall is due to the general economic slowdown, cessation of services to Amsterdam and the effects of the terrorist attacks of 11 September. A day which, in the expectation of Evelyn Schuster, Director of Marketing/PR, will probably also influence bookings for the summer of 2002. Currently 20 airlines fly directly to a total of 52 destinations. However, in the summer season another ten airlines and another ten destinations will be added.

To promote public awareness of the airport, Ingolf Brömme, the creative head of the visitor service, has devised a series of unusual runway, airport and "nightseeing" tours that are intended to make the airport more accessible to the people of Saxony, Anhalt and Thuringia. It has paid off: 40,000 visitors enjoyed these tours in 2000. For example, one variant entailed visiting the respiratory equipment exercise facilities clad in fireman's clothing, while in another variant visitors celebrated in style in the "party tower", formerly the home of the meteorological service, before being driven across the illuminated northern runway by night in a bus.

The present freight handling capacity of 50,000 tonnes could, if required, rapidly be increased to 130,000 tonnes per annum. With its location at the motorway intersection between the A9 andA14, its direct proximity to the goods traffic centre of Leipzig and the existing grounds in the south of the airport, Leipzig/Halle is forearmed as a future air freight location in central Germany, even for large volumes of freight. "All we need now is a better road connection to Chemnitz," explains Managing Director Hesse, who sees other growth opportunities, for example, in the daily flight connection to Moscow-Domodedovo. "Our situation means that there are good opportunities as regards cargo traffic towards the east."

On the other hand, in 2001 Lufthansa Cargo temporarily ceased general freight handling and TNT relocated its activities for logistics reasons to other airports, so that freight volume for 2001 actually fell by 15% to 9,200 tonnes. Management expects 15% growth to be achieved in 2002. Moreover, Hesse and his team are working on getting an express service with a hub in Leipzig/Halle to settle here. In the area of air mail, Leipzig/Halle clocked up 7,000 tonnes of business in 2001, an increase of 15% on the previous year. In addition, from 2002 the night air mail service from Dresden and Magdeburg to Schkeuditz is also to be handled here.

Total airport sales revenues for 2000 came to DM 85.9 million, and for 2001 to DM 83.2 million. Operating business also made a profit in 2001. "But overall results for 2001 were below our expectations," says Hesse. He would have liked revenue to have been another four to five percent higher. "We have done our homework," he says with regard to the investment in the airport. In Leipzig/Halle there is a latent need to catch up, he points out, but a lot of people have no financial reserves. "They need to build these up, but that requires that unemployment is only 5%, rather than 20%, as it is in some regions here."

From page 86 of FLUG REVUE 2/2002