Frankfurt Airport

Frankfurt Airport
Flughafen Frankfurt am Main

AirportFrankfurt fromair.jpg

Logo of Frankfurt Airport
IATA: FRA – ICAO: EDDF
Summary
Airport type Public
Operator Fraport
Serves Frankfurt am Main
Elevation AMSL 364 ft / 111 m
Website http://www.frankfurt-airport.com
Runways
Direction Length Surface
m ft
07L/25R 4,000 13,123 Asphalt
07R/25L 4,000 13,123 Concrete
3612 4,000 13,123 Concrete
183 4,000 13,123 Concrete
Source: EUROCONTROL[1]
1 As per NOTAMs runway is unlit/unmarked until May 2008 and instrument approach suspended until December 2008[1]
2 Runway 26L is a displaced threshold of Runway 07R/25L.[2]
3 The opposite end of Runway 18, which if marked would be Runway 36, is unused.
Frankfurt Airport FAA diagram

Frankfurt am Main International Airport (IATA: FRA, ICAO: EDDF), known in German as Flughafen Frankfurt am Main or Rhein-Main-Flughafen and in rest of Europe with the code FF is located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 12 km (7 mi) southwest[1] 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. Modifications to the airport to make it Airbus A380 compatible have already started, including the building of a large A380 maintenance facility near the former U.S. Air Base which is not yet completed. 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 other main hub is Franz Josef Strauß International Airport in Munich where many key medium and long haul routes are also available, lessening the need to overburden Frankfurt Airport.

Contents

Terminals

Frankfurt Airport has 2 terminals altogether. Terminal 1 is divided into concourses A, B and C. Terminal 2 is divided into concourses D and E. Frankfurt Airport has 45 boarding gates altogether.

Importance

Frankfurt Airport is the third largest airport by passenger traffic in Europe after London Heathrow Airport and Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, as well as the eighth largest airport worldwide.

World's busiest airports by passenger traffic [3]

Rank City Airport Passengers (2007)
1. Flag of the United States.svg Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport 89,379,287
2. Flag of the United States.svg Chicago O'Hare International Airport 76,159,324
3. Flag of the United Kingdom.svg London Heathrow Airport 68,068,554
4. Flag of Japan.svg Tokyo Narita Airport 66,671,435
5. Flag of the United States.svg Los Angeles Los Angeles International Airport 61,895,548
6. Flag of France.svg Paris Charles de Gaulle International Airport 59,919,383
7. Flag of the United States.svg Dallas/Fort Worth Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport 59,784,876
8. Flag of Germany.svg Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt International Airport 54,161,856
9. Flag of the People's Republic of China.svg Beijing Beijing Capital International Airport 53,736,923
10. Flag of Spain.svg Madrid Madrid Barajas International Airport 52,122,214

Frankfurt is also the busiest European airport by cargo traffic and ranks seventh largest worldwide.

World's busiest airports by cargo traffic [4]

Rank City Airport cargo in t (2007)
1. Flag of the United States.svg Memphis Memphis International Airport 3,840,574
2. Flag of Hong Kong.svg Hong Kong Chek Lap Kok International Airport 3,772,673
3. Flag of the United States.svg Anchorage Ted Stevens International Airport 2,826,499
4. Flag of South Korea.svg Incheon Incheon International Airport 2,555,582
5. Flag of the People's Republic of China.svg Shanghai Shanghai Pudong International Airport 2,494,808
6. Flag of Japan.svg Narita/Tokyo Narita International Airport 2,252,654
7. Flag of Germany.svg Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt International Airport 2,169,025
8. Flag of the United States.svg Louisville Louisville International Airport 2,078,290
9. Flag of France.svg Paris Charles de Gaulle International Airport 2,005,160
10. Flag of the United States.svg Miami Miami International Airport 1,922,982

In terms of plane movement, Frankfurt was second in Europe in 2006 with 489,406 landings and take offs, between Paris Charles de Gaulle (541,566) and London Heathrow (481,476).

Access

Airport Long-Distance Rail Station
Modal split of means of transport of passengers departing from Frankfurt airport in 2006

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 via Cologne at speeds up to 300 km/h (190 mph). 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 parking lot is located south of the runways, on the site of the former US military installation, 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.[5]

History

Aerial view of the airport

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.[6]

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 International Airport seen from the East

Frankfurt Airport has two main passenger terminals, which are connected by corridors as well as by people movers and buses.

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

Frankfurt Airport
Terminal 1, Lufthansa B747-400

Concourse A has gates on two levels, with gates numbered A51 through A65 positioned directly above gates numbered A08 through A42.[7]

Airlines and destinations from Concourse A
Airlines Destinations
Adria Airways Ljubljana, Vienna
Austrian Airlines Vienna
Austrian Airlines operated by Austrian Arrows Innsbruck, Salzburg, Vienna
Croatia Airlines Dubrovnik, Split, Zagreb
LOT Polish Airlines Gdansk, Kraków, Poznan, Warsaw, Wroclaw
Lufthansa Abu Dhabi, Abuja, Accra, Addis Ababa, Alexandria, Algiers, Almaty, Amman, Amsterdam, Ashgabat, Asmara, Astana, Athens, Atlanta, Bahrain, Baku, Bangalore, Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi, Barcelona, Beijing, Beirut, Belgrade, Berlin-Tegel, Bilbao, Birmingham, Bologna, Boston, Bremen, Bristol, Brussels, Bucharest-Otopeni, Budapest, Buenos Aires-Ezeiza, Cairo, Calgary, Cape Town, Caracas, Casablanca, Chennai, Chicago-O'Hare, Copenhagen, Dallas/Fort Worth, Dammam, Delhi, Denver, Detroit, Doha, Dresden, Dubai, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Edinburgh, Ekaterinburg, Faro, Geneva, Gothenburg-Landvetter, Guangzhou, Hamburg, Hanover, Helsinki, Hong Kong, Houston-Intercontinental, Ho Chi Minh City, Hyderabad, Istanbul-Atatürk, Jakarta, Jeddah, Johannesburg, Kazan, Khartoum, Kiev-Boryspil, Kolkata, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait, Lagos, Larnaca, Leipzig/Halle, Lisbon, London-Heathrow, Los Angeles, Luanda, Lyon, Madrid, Malabo, Manchester, Marseille, Mexico City, Miami, Milan-Linate, Milan-Malpensa, Minsk, Moscow-Domodedovo, Mumbai, Munich, Muscat, Nagoya-Centrair, Nanjing, New York-JFK, Newark, Nice, Nizhniy Novgorod, Nuremberg, Orlando, Oslo, Osaka-Kansai, Palma de Mallorca, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Perm, Philadelphia, Portland (OR), Porto, Prague, Riga, Riyadh, Rome-Fiumicino, Rostov, St. Petersburg, Samara, San Francisco, Sanaa, São Paulo-Guarulhos, Seattle/Tacoma, Seoul-Incheon, Shanghai-Pudong, Singapore, Sofia, Split, Stockholm-Arlanda, Stuttgart, Tallinn, Tehran-Imam Khomeini, Tel Aviv, Tokyo-Narita, Toronto-Pearson, Tripoli, Tunis, Turin, Ufa, Vancouver, Venice, Verona, Vienna, Vilnius, Warsaw, Washington-Dulles, Zagreb, Zürich
Lufthansa Regional operated by Air Dolomiti Turin, Verona
Lufthansa Regional operated by Cirrus Airlines Katowice, Münster/Osnabrück
Lufthansa Regional operated by Contact Air Hof/Plauen
Lufthansa Regional operated by Eurowings Billund, Gdansk, Graz, Krakow, Leipzig/Halle, London-City, Marseille, Nuremberg, Stavanger, Stuttgart, Wroclaw
Lufthansa Regional operated by Lufthansa CityLine Basel/Mulhouse, Bergen, Florence, Friedrichshafen, Krakow, Linz, London-City, Münster/Osnabrück, Paderborn/Lippstadt, Stuttgart, Toulouse
operated by PrivatAir Dubai [seasonal], Newark [seasonal], Pune
Luxair Luxembourg
Scandinavian Airlines System Copenhagen, Gothenburg-Landvetter, Oslo, Stockholm-Arlanda
Spanair Madrid
Swiss International Air Lines Zürich
Terminal 1
Skytrains connecting concourses A and B of Terminal 1 pass each other

Concourse B

Airlines and destinations from Concourse B
Airlines Destinations
Aegean Airlines Athens, Thessaloniki
Air Algérie Algiers
Air Canada Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto-Pearson
Air China Beijing, Shanghai-Pudong
Air Malta Malta
Air Moldova Chiṣinău
Air Namibia Windhoek
Alitalia operated by Alitalia Express Milan-Linate, Rome-Fiumicino
All Nippon Airways Tokyo-Narita
Bulgaria Air Sofia
Carpatair Timişoara
Condor Airlines Agadir, Anchorage [seasonal], Antalya, Antigua, Bridgetown, Burgas, Cancun, Colombo, Fairbanks, Grenada, Halifax, Havana, Holguin, Ibiza, La Palma, Lanzarote, Larnaca, Las Vegas, Mahé, Malé, Mauritius, Minorca, Mombasa, Montego Bay, Palma de Mallorca, Porlamar, Puerto Plata, Punta Cana, Recife, Rhodes, Samana, Salvador, San José (CR), Santo Domingo, Tangier, Tenerife-South, Thessaloniki, Tobago, Vancouver, Varadero, Whitehorse
Cyprus Airways Larnaca
EgyptAir Cairo
Estonian Air Tallinn
Kuwait Airways Kuwait
Libyan Airlines Tripoli
Lufthansa See Concourse A
Middle East Airlines Beirut
Olympic Airlines Athens
Qatar Airways Doha
Royal Air Maroc Casablanca
Royal Jordanian Amman
Singapore Airlines New York-JFK, Singapore
South African Airways Johannesburg
SriLankan Airlines Colombo
SunExpress Antalya
Syrian Arab Airlines Aleppo, Damascus
TAM Linhas Aéreas São Paulo-Guarulhos
TAP Portugal Funchal, Lisbon, Porto
TAROM Bucharest-Otopeni, Cluj-Napoca
Tunisair Djerba, Monastir, Tunis
Turkish Airlines Ankara, Istanbul-Atatürk, Izmir
United Airlines Chicago-O'Hare, San Francisco, Washington-Dulles
Vietnam Airlines Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City

Concourse C

Airlines and destinations from Concourse C
Airlines Destinations
Air India Chicago-O'Hare, Mumbai
American Airlines Chicago-O'Hare, Dallas/Fort Worth
Asiana Airlines Seoul-Incheon
Brussels Airlines Brussels
El Al Tel Aviv
Ethiopian Airlines Addis Ababa
Iran Air Tehran-Imam Khomeini
Jat Airways Belgrade
Lufthansa See Concourse A
Thai Airways International Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi
US Airways Charlotte, Philadelphia

Terminal 2

Terminal 2

Terminal 2 opened on the 24 October 1994. It is designed to resemble a classical railway station from its landside facade. It is divided into two concourses.

Concourse D

Concourse E

Terminal 2, Skyline

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.[8]

Other features & 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 & DHL office open to the public.

Incidents

In 1969, Ariana Flight 701, a Boeing 727 of Ariana Afghan Airlines was arriving at London Gatwick Airport from Frankfurt when it crashed into a house, killing 50 of the 66 people aboard. Two people died on the ground.

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 (Boeing 747) 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.[9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 German Aeronautical Information Publication from EUROCONTROL
  2. ↑ Fraport Corporation - HALS/DTOP
  3. ↑ Airport Council International: Total Passenger Traffic 2007
  4. ↑ Airport Council International: Year to date Cargo Traffic 2007
  5. ↑ Statistical data prepared by Fraport department MVG-MF based on polls conducted in the departure lounges every four days
  6. ↑ hr-online: Startbahn West Chronik
  7. ↑ Terminal maps
  8. ↑ "A Bubble Bath and a Glass Of Bubbly — at the Airport," Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2007. [1]
  9. ↑ 'Massive' Terror Plot Foiled In Germany (Sky News)

External links