Discover

(Redirected from Frankfurt International Airport)


'Frankfurt Airport' , known in German as 'Rhein-Main-Flughafen' or 'Flughafen Frankfurt am Main', is located near Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It is the largest airport in Germany, and third largest in Europe, serving as an important hub for international flights from around the world. It is run by Fraport AG. The southern side of the airport, Rhein-Main Air Base, was a major airlift base for the United States from 1947 until late 2005. It is located 12 kilometres from the Frankfurt city centre.
Frankfurt is a hub of Lufthansa, the German national carrier. Because of over-capacity in Frankfurt, Lufthansa divides traffic between Frankfurt and Munich's Franz Josef Strauß International Airport when possible.
Frankfurt currently serves more destinations (265 non-stop destinations) than London's Heathrow Airport, but in terms of passenger traffic Frankfurt is third in Europe, behind London's Heathrow Airport and Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport.

★ Passenger traffic at Frankfurt Airport in 2006 was 52,810,683, compared with 67,530,197 at Heathrow Airport, and 56,849,567 at Charles de Gaulle Airport.

★ In terms of plane movement, Frankfurt was second in Europe with 489,406 landings and take offs, between Charles de Gaulle Airport (541,566) and Heathrow (477,030).

★ In terms of cargo traffic, Frankfurt was second in Europe with 2,127,646 metric tonnes (2,345,328 US tons), just behind Charles de Gaulle Airport (2,130,724 metric tonnes), and above Amsterdam Schiphol Airport (1,566,828 metric tonnes) and Heathrow (1,343,930 metric tonnes).
Nevertheless, 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 complete. The work on the fourth runway has been delayed several times due to environmental concerns. A final decision about zoning is expected for 2007, and the runway could be in operation by 2010.
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^[1].

Contents

History

Incidents on flights that departed from here

Structure and function

Terminal 1

Concourse A

Concourse B

Concourse C

Terminal 2

Concourse D

Concourse E

First Class Terminal

Other Features & Amenities

Ground transportation

See also

References

External links

History

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. After the war, it served as the main West German operations base for the Berlin Airlift.
The airport did not emerge as a major international hub until 1972, when its new passenger terminal (now Terminal 1) opened.

Incidents on flights that departed from here

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 727) took off from Frankfurt. About half of the passengers and baggage changed planes at Heathrow Airport to continue to the U.S. A bomb exploded on the aircraft (Boeing 747) above the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all the passengers on board. The bomb was planted by Libyan terrorists.

Structure and function

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 in various levels, the departure level in the upper deck and the arrival level below.
It is divided into three concourses. Lufthansa and its Star Alliance partners currently dominate all of Terminal 1.

Concourse A

Concourse A has gates on two levels, with gates numbered A51 through A65 positioned directly above gates numbered A08 through A42 [1]. Passengers checking in at Frankfurt must go through two separate security checkpoints in order to reach gates A60 through A65 where Lufthansa flights to the United States of America depart. Restrooms in Concourse A have a maximum capacity of between one and three people. The concourse has no water fountains, although the water in the toilet sinks is labelled as drinkable.

★ Adria Airways (Ljubljana,Vienna)

★ Austrian Airlines (Vienna)

★
★ Austrian Airlines operated by Austrian Arrows (Innsbruck, Klagenfurt, Salzburg, Vienna)

★ Cirrus Airlines (Billund)

★ Croatia Airlines (Dubrovnik, Split, Zagreb)

★ LOT Polish Airlines (Gdańsk, Kraków, Poznań, Warsaw, Wrocław)

★ Lufthansa (Abu Dhabi, Abuja, Accra, Addis Ababa, Alexandria, Algiers, Almaty, Amman, Amsterdam, Ashgabat, Asmara, Athens, Atlanta, Bahrain, Baku, Bangalore, Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi, Barcelona, Basel/Mulhouse, Beijing, Beirut, Belgrade, Berlin-Tegel, Bilbao, Birmingham, Bologna, Boston, Brussels, Bucharest-Otopeni, Budapest, Buenos Aires-Ezeiza, Cairo, Cape Town, Caracas, Casablanca, Chennai, Chicago-O'Hare, Copenhagen, Dallas/Fort Worth, Dammam, Delhi, Denver, Detroit, Doha, Dubai, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Edinburgh, Ekaterinburg, Faro, Florence, Geneva, Gothenburg-Landvetter, Guangzhou, Hamburg, Hanover, Helsinki, Hof-Plauen, Hong Kong, Houston-Intercontinental, Hyderabad, Istanbul-Atatürk, Jakarta, Jeddah, Johannesburg, Karachi (Starts 28th October 2007), Katowice, Kazan, Khartoum, Kiev-Boryspil, Kolkata, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait, Lagos, Lahore (Starts 28th October 2007), Larnaca, Leipzig/Halle, Linz, Lisbon, London-City, London-Heathrow, Los Angeles, Madrid, Manchester, Manila, Marseille, Mexico City, Miami, Milan-Linate, Milan-Malpensa, Minsk, Moscow-Sheremetyevo, Münster/Osnabrück, Mumbai, Munich, Muscat, Nagoya-Centrair, New York-JFK, Newark, Nice, Nizhniy Novgorod, Nuremberg, Orlando [begins October 30, 2007], Oslo, Osaka-Kansai, Paderborn, Palma de Mallorca, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Perm, Philadelphia, Portland (OR), Porto, Prague, Riga, Rimini, Riyadh, Rome-Fiumicino, Rostov, St. Petersburg, Samara, San Francisco, Sanaa, São Paulo-Guarulhos, Seoul-Incheon, Shanghai-Pudong, Singapore, Sofia, Split, Stavanger, Stockholm-Arlanda, Stuttgart, Tallinn, Tehran-Mehrabad, Tel Aviv, Tokyo-Narita, Toulouse, Toronto-Pearson, Tripoli, Tunis, Turin, Ufa, Vancouver, Verona, Vienna, Vilnius, Warsaw, Washington-Dulles, Wrocław [starts November 2007], Zagreb, Zürich)

★
★ Lufthansa operated by Air Dolomiti (Verona)

★ Luxair (Luxembourg)

★ Scandinavian Airlines System (Copenhagen, Gothenburg-Landvetter, Oslo, Stockholm-Arlanda)

★ Spanair (Madrid)

★ Swiss International Air Lines (Zürich)

Concourse B

★ Aegean Airlines (Athens, Thessaloniki)

★ Aeroflot (Moscow-Sheremetyevo)

★ Air Algérie (Algiers)

★ Air Canada (Calgary, Montréal, Toronto-Pearson)

★ Air China (Beijing, Shanghai-Pudong)

★ Air Malta (Malta)

★ Air Moldova (Chişinău)

★ Air Namibia (Windhoek)

★ Alitalia

★
★ Alitalia operated by Alitalia Express (Milan-Linate, Milan-Malpensa, Rome-Fiumicino)

★ All Nippon Airways (Tokyo-Narita)

★ Bulgaria Air (Sofia)

★ Carpatair (Timişoara)

★ Condor Airlines (Agadir, Anchorage [seasonal], Antalya, Burgas, Calgary [Seasonal], Cancun, Colombo, Gan Island [starts November 2007], Fairbanks, Halifax, Havana, Holguin, Ibiza, La Palma, Lanzarote, Larnaca, Las Vegas, Menorca, Mauritius, Mombasa, Orlando, Palma de Mallorca, Porlamar, Puerto Plata, Punta Cana, Rhodes, Salvador da Baía, San José (CR), Tenerife-South, Thessaloniki, Tobago, Vancouver, Varadero, Whitehorse)

★ Cyprus Airways (Larnaca)

★ EgyptAir (Cairo)

★ Estonian Air (Tallinn)

★ Kuwait Airways (Kuwait)

★ Libyan Arab Airlines (Tripoli)

★ Lufthansa (See Concourse A)

★ Middle East Airlines (Beirut)

★ Olympic Airways (Athens, Thessaloniki)

★ Qatar Airways (Doha)

★ Royal Air Maroc (Casablanca)

★ Royal Jordanian (Amman)

★ Singapore Airlines (New York-JFK, Singapore)

★ South African Airways (Cape Town, Johannesburg)

★ SriLankan Airlines (Colombo)

★ SunExpress (Antalya)

★ Syrian Arab Airlines (Aleppo, Damascus)

★ TAP Portugal (Funchal, Lisbon)

★ TAROM (Bucharest-Otopeni, Cluj-Napoca)

★ Tunisair (Monastir, Tunis)

★ Turkish Airlines (Ankara, Istanbul-Atatürk, Izmir)

★ United Airlines (Chicago-O'Hare, San Francisco, Washington-Dulles)

★ Varig (Rio de Janeiro-Galeão, São Paulo-Guarulhos)

★ Vietnam Airlines (Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City)

Concourse C

★ Air India (Bangalore, Chennai, Chicago-O'Hare, Delhi, Hyderabad, Los Angeles, Mumbai, San Francisco [begins October 27])

★ American Airlines (Chicago-O'Hare, Dallas/Fort Worth)

★ Asiana Airlines (Seoul-Incheon)

★ Brussels Airlines (Brussels)

★ El Al (Tel Aviv)

★ Ethiopian Airlines (Addis Ababa, Paris-Charles de Gaulle)

★ Iran Air (Tehran-Mehrabad)

★ Jat Airways (Belgrade)

★ Lufthansa (See Concourse A)

★ Thai Airways International (Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi)

★ US Airways (Charlotte, Philadelphia)

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

★ Aer Lingus (Dublin)

★ Aeroflot-Don (Rostov-on-Don, Sochi)

★ Air Astana (Almaty, Astana, Karaganda, Kustanay)

★ Air France (Paris-Charles de Gaulle)

★
★ Air France operated by Brit Air (Lyon)

★ Air Mauritius (Mauritius)

★ Air Via (Burgas, Varna)

★ Belavia (Minsk)

★ Blue Wings

★ B&H Airlines (Sarajevo)

★ China Airlines (Taipei-Taiwan Taoyuan)

★ China Eastern Airlines (Shanghai-Pudong)

★ Czech Airlines (Prague)

★ Delta Air Lines (Atlanta, Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky, New York-JFK)

★ East Line Airlines

★ Eritrean Airlines (Asmara)

★ FlyLal (Palanga, Vilnius)

★ Free Bird Airlines

★ Georgian Airways (Tblisi)

★ Gulf Air (Bahrain, Muscat)

★ Japan Airlines (Tokyo-Narita)

★ KLM

★
★ KLM operated by KLM Cityhopper (Amsterdam)

★ Korean Air (Seoul-Incheon)

★ Kuban Airlines (Krasnodar)

★ Malaysia Airlines (Kuala Lumpur)

★ Malév Hungarian Airlines (Budapest)

★ Montenegro Airlines (Podgorica)

★ Omskavia (Chelyabinsk, Omsk)

★ Pegasus Airlines (Antalya)

★ Rossiya (St. Petersburg)

★ Royal Brunei Airlines (Bandar Seri Begawan, Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi) [ends September 10, 2007]

★ Saudi Arabian Airlines (Jeddah, Riyadh)

★ Sky Airlines (Antalya)

★ TAM (São Paulo-Guarulhos) [begins December 1, 2007]

★ Transaero (Moscow-Domodedovo)

★ TUIfly (Antalya, Catania, Chania, Ibiza, Karkyra, Kos, Lanzarote, Menorca, Palma de Mallorca, Patras, Rhodes, Tenerife-South, Thessaloniki, Thira)

★ Turkmenistan Airlines (Ashgabat)

★ Ukraine International (Kiev-Boryspil, Lvov, Simferopol)

★ Uzbekistan Airways (Tashkent)

Concourse E

★ Air Berlin (Alicante, Araxos, Arrecife, Berlin-Tegel, Catania, Chania, Corfu, Faro, Fuerteventura, Funchal, Heraklion, Ibiza, Jerez, Kos, Lamezia Terme, La Palma, Malaga, Palermo, Palma de Mallorca, Rhodes, Santorini, Tenerife-South)

★ Air Seychelles (Seychelles)

★ Air Transat (Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Toronto-Pearson, Vancouver)

★ Albanian Airlines (Tirana)

★ Armavia (Yerevan) [seasonal]

★ British Airways (London-Heathrow)

★
★ British Airways operated by BA CityFlyer (London-City)

★ Bulgarian Air Charter (Burgas, Varna)

★ Cathay Pacific (Hong Kong)

★ Clickair (Barcelona)

★ Continental Airlines (Newark)

★ Cyprus Turkish Airlines (Ankara, Antalya)

★ Emirates (Dubai)

★ Etihad Airways (Abu Dhabi)

★ Finnair (Helsinki)

★ Flybe (Birmingham, Manchester, Southampton)

★ Hamburg International (Erbil)

★ Iberia (Madrid, Zaragoza)

★ Icelandair (Reykjavik-Keflavik)

★ Inter Airlines (Antalya, Istanbul-Atatürk)

★ KrasAir (Omsk)

★ LAN Airlines (Madrid, Santiago)

★ LTU International (Antalya, Burgas, Catania, Faro, Fuerteventura, Heraklion, Hurghada, Ibiza, Kavala, Kerkyra, Lanzarote, Madeira, Monastir, Palma de Mallorca, Rhodes, Samos, Sharm El Sheik, Thessaloniki, Varna)

★ Niki (Vienna)

★ Northwest Airlines (Detroit)

★ Nouvelair (Monastir)

★ Qantas (Singapore, Sydney)

★ SATA International (Ponta Delgada)

★ Saravia (Saratov)

★ S7 Airlines (Moscow-Domodedovo, Novosibirsk, Omsk)

★ Yemenia (Sanaa)

First Class Terminal

Lufthansa maintains a separate First Class Terminal at Frankfurt Airport for the use of first class passengers and members of the highest tier of its Miles & More rewards program (but not other Star Alliance programs). 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 are driven from the terminal directly to their aircraft by a chaffeured Mercedes. The commercial success of the FCT at Frankfurt has led Lufthansa to plan the opening of a similar facility at Munich International Airport.^[2]

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.

Ground transportation

To the land side, Frankfurt Airport is well connected with a double railway station and being located directly at one of the most important intersections of Autobahns in Germany, the A3 and A5.
The Frankfurt (Main) Flughafen Regionalbahnhof has been opened in 1972 together with the Terminal 1. It is located under the street in front of the terminal, two levels below the arrivals level. During most of the day, S-Bahn-trains depart every 15 minutes to the eastwards to the Frankfurt central station (11 minutes), the four stations in the central ''Citytunnel'' and further to the east of Frankfurt, namely Offenbach and Hanau, and westwards to Rüsselsheim, Mainz and Wiesbaden. The first S-Bahn trains arrive at 4:28h from Frankfurt and Hanau, at 4:29h from Mainz and Wiesbaden, the last ones depart at 1:32h to Frankfurt, and at 0:29h to Wiesbaden and 0:59h to Rüsselsheim. The ticket to Frankfurt costs 3.55 Euro. The ticket must be purchased before going down to the platform, either at vending machines or the Deutsche Bahn ticket counter.
Regional express trains to other destinations like Saarbrücken in the west, Koblenz down the Rhine valley, or Würzburg in the east also call at the regional station, as some long distance trains, especially in the night hours, when the long distance station is closed.
The Frankfurt (Main) Flughafen Fernbahnhof, opened in 1999, is the end point of the new Cologne-Frankfurt high-speed rail line which links Cologne as the gateway to the Ruhrgebiet with southern Germany, allowing speeds up to 300 km/h (186 mph). All ICE trains between Cologne and southern Germany stop at the Airport train station, taking slighly less than an hour from Cologne to the Airport. About 10 trains per hour depart in all directions.
The station is squeezed in between the ''Autobahn'' A3 and the four-lane ''Bundesstraße'' B43, linked to Terminal 1 by a building bridging the Autobahn. Arriving railway passengers can check in right at the train station for about 60 airlines.
The tracks are numbered from 1 to 3 in the regional station, from 4 to 7 in the long distance station.
Deutsche Bahn operates the AiRail Service in conjunction with Lufthansa, American Airlines and Emirates. The service operates to Bonn Hbf, Cologne Hbf, Düsseldorf Hbf, Freiburg Hbf, Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe, Karlsruhe Hbf, Leipzig Hauptbahnhof, Hamburg Hauptbahnhof, Hanover Hbf, Mannheim Hbf, Munich Hbf, Nuremberg Hbf, and Stuttgart Hbf.
Various transport companies provide bus services to the airport.
Taxis to the city centre (Hauptwache) cost approximately 25 € or slightly more, to the main train station about three Euros less.
For passengers coming with their own car, multi-storey parkings, mostly underground, are lined up along the terminals. A long term parking lot is located south of the runways, on the area of the former US military installation, with a shuttle bus to the terminals.
In 2006, 29.5% of the 12'299'192 passengers whose air travel originated in Frankfurt were brought 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^[3].

See also

★ Frankfurt-Hahn Airport

★ Frankfurt (Main) Flughafen Fernbahnhof

★ Rhein-Main Air Base

References

1. 'Massive' Terror Plot Foiled In Germany (Sky News)
2. "A Bubble Bath and a Glass Of Bubbly — at the Airport," ''Wall Street Journal'', July 10, 2007. [2]
3. Statistical data prepared by Fraport department MVG-MF based on polls conducted in the departure lounges every four days

External links

★ Frankfurt Airport (official site)

★ Fraport AG

★

★ Passenger Traffic 2005[3][4]