FLUG REVUE October 2003: Frankfurt airport expansion plans

FRANKFURT AIRPORT POISED FOR NEXT PHASE OF EXPANSION

By Sebastian Steinke

As we went to press, 9 September was set to be the all-important date from the planning law perspective, as on that date Fraport AG was due to submit its zoning request, part of the formal approval procedure required for the further expansion of Frankfurt airport. At the heart of the biggest individual investment project in the Federal Republic of Germany, which will cost €3.3 billion, are the release for development of an area on the southern side of the airport, on which Deutsche Lufthansa will independently build a huge maintenance hangar for three A380's by 2006, the construction of a landing runway to the north-west and, from 2008, the gradual construction of a third terminal building “T3” on the land currently occupied by an US airbase scheduled to close.

Frankfurt expansion map

“Aviation is still definitely a growth industry”, said Annegret Reinhardt-Lehmann, responsible for marketing at Fraport AG, in an interview with FLUG REVUE on 21 August. Even if a small loss was feared this year as a result of the SARS crisis – “We will finish the year slightly in the red unless something serious happens” – Ms Reinhardt-Lehmann points out that over the last 20 years air traffic has grown at a stable average of around five percent per year.

“Five percent growth!” she exclaims, “What other industry can still boast figures like that today?” Although aviation had undergone some testing times over the years, such as the oil crisis, the fallout from Chernobyl and the first Asian crisis, these had always been followed by a spurt in growth which more than offset any temporary dip. It is precisely such a recovery spurt that Reinhardt-Lehmann expects to see once again in Frankfurt in 2004. “It is noticeable that Asia is growing strongly both in passenger and cargo traffic.” On the other hand, the North American market, was still weak, while in Europe, Spain, and especially the Balearic Islands and the “hot beach destinations” of south-east European, were at best ticking over.

In order to finally increase runway capacity to 120 flight movements, the permitted number of slot-coordinated flights per hour, which Frankfurt's arch rivals of London Heathrow, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Amsterdam Schiphol have already attained, a new 2800m landing runway to the north-west of the airport is to be built.

A landing-only runway on top of the takeoff-only 18 West runway? Are they not repeating a mistake that was made before? Airport spokesman Wolfgang Schwalm denies the charge: the Rhine-Main location has already been in operation for seventy years and has to demonstrate special consideration for its environment. The new north-west runway will have the least impact on the natural environment. Although it will entail cutting down some woodland in the vicinity of the municipality of Kelsterbach, parts of the expansion area, into which motorway and ICE rail have already made inroads, have little cover or have contained a transformer station up to now. On the other hand, according to Schwalm, the alternative southern runway also considered would have meant completely felling an uninterrupted area of woodland.

A factor of even greater importance for the decision, however, was the noise pollution to which those living in the vicinity of the airport would be exposed. According to Schwalm, the southern runway would have required a landing corridor directly over the adjoining community of Neu-Isenburg, whereas this is avoided in the present plans for a north-west runway. Also, the existing 18 West runway will not now be rendered virtually unusable by being intercepted by three parallel runways and can continue to serve as the most noise-friendly departure path over the thinly populated countryside to the south. Restricting the runway to landings only will spare the residents of Rüsselsheim the noise of jets taking off. Despite all the restrictions, the new runway will significantly increase capacity, as the Head of Marketing, Ms Reinhardt-Lehmann points out. “Landings are our bottleneck, not takeoffs.”

The airport has accepted further constraints as regards its operating hours: along with the expansion plans, Fraport has applied for restrictions in operation between 11pm and 5am. This means that, apart from in emergencies, night-time flight movements in Frankfurt will cease. Neither delayed landings nor workshop test flights will be possible. Reinhardt-Lehmann consoles herself with the surmise that due to the fact that DHL has been taken over by Deutsche Post AG reductions to the night-air-mail service can be expected, and in any case the late evening arrival of a number of charter flights up to now has actually been caused by slot constraints and could be moved to earlier times. However, the new rules will be a problem for seven night-time cargo flights.

In return, Rhine-Main plans to defend its position as the German hub in the premier league of European airports by building an extra international Terminal 3 between 2008/2009 and 2013. By 2015, capacity will rise to an impressive 82 million passengers. By comparison, in 2002 48.5 million passengers were handled. “We are competing with Paris for position two in Europe after London Heathrow,” explains Annegret Reinhardt-Lehmann. “But Paris already has four runways and its expansion plans will be complete by 2015. There is still a lot of capacity there and, if required, the French have plans at the ready for a new site near Amiens. They plan very strategically,” she says with an element of admiration. Given that the Star Alliance has a seventy percent share of the traffic in Rhine-Main, the marketing manager is matter-of-fact about its main continental rival, the SkyTeam Alliance.

On the other hand, competitors in Germany, such as Munich, are only small fry as far as Rhine-Main, the biggest single job machine in the country, employing 62,000 people, is concerned. Usually, she explains, Munich only gets extra flights after a destination is already being successfully flown from Frankfurt. The significance of the Munich expansion is more of the nature of a positive overall stimulus to the German aviation system.

On the other hand, when it comes to talking about Berlin, Reinhardt-Lehmann is much more direct: “Our aviation policy needs reforming, with a nation-wide concept for a German airport landscape.” The present system of delegating major decisions to the regional level of Bundesland is not working. “Is it sensible that every district administrator should want to operate an airport?” she asks. There are a number of military airfields in top condition around, but they cannot all be expanded.

Fraport's own sister airport, Frankfurt-Hahn, was expanded right from the start with strict limits on costs for the benefit of the no-frills airlines. “The floor is made of concrete, the walls are corrugated sheets. That's OK for two hours. Passengers walk across the ramp to their aircraft, and if it's raining, then they walk a bit faster,” says Reinhardt-Lehmann, who believes that the phenomenon of cheap flights is not a short-term fad. Instead, a largely unheeded change in awareness is taking place in the industry among passengers in the point-to-point sector, who realised after their first cheap flight that they do not actually need more comfort and do not plan to pay any more in future either.

Reinhardt-Lehmann's vision for Frankfurt Rhine-Main is quite different. The intercontinental hub, she explains, wants to offer a “sophisticated transfer product”. This includes the Hub Control Centre operated jointly with Lufthansa which, for example, at short notice directs flights with a large proportion of transfer passengers to nearby gates, high-speed baggage transfer and the seamless transfer of passengers to ICE high speed trains, other main-line and suburban railway services or to covered car parks close by.

Unlike London or Paris, she continues, Frankfurt does not generate enough traffic of its own for the intercontinental flights Therefore the rapid handling of transfer passengers for Rhine-Main is especially important. To save on valuable slots, but also for the sake of convenience, short-haul flights up to 300km could largely be shifted on to the railways. Under the latest plans of Fraport AG, Frankfurt's two airports of Rhine-Main and Hahn are to be merged into a single airport system. The four-lane expansion of the road connection, on which work has already been begun, and the future rail connection to the former Hunsrück military airport are a part of this.

With the success of the low-cost airlines, the big airport hubs are also coming under increasing cost pressure, as many traditional airlines are now redoubling their efforts to reduce their costs in the passenger handling area. However, Annegret Reinhardt-Lehmann has no illusions in this department: “90 percent of the airport's costs are fixed costs and relate to investment in buildings and facilities. The only way to save money is to build more cheaply. The era of marble is over, as the cost pressure from the airlines is too great.” At the same time, however, she does make the point, “If you pay less, then you get less as well. We certainly want to make a profit ourselves.”

From page 66 of FLUG REVUE 10/2003

Last updated 1 September 2003

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