Frankfurt Airport

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For other uses, see Frankfurt Airport (disambiguation).
Frankfurt Airport
Flughafen Frankfurt am Main

Image:Frankfurt intl airport (nasa).jpg

IATA: FRA – ICAO: EDDF
Summary
Airport type Public
Operator Fraport
Serves Frankfurt am Main
Elevation AMSL 111 m / 364 ft
Coordinates 50°02′57″N 08°34′22″E / 50.04917, 8.57278Coordinates: 50°02′57″N 08°34′22″E / 50.04917, 8.57278
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
18/36 4,000 13,123 Concrete
Image:Eddfapd.jpg
Frankfurt Airport

Frankfurt Airport (IATA: FRA, ICAO: EDDF), known in German as Flughafen Frankfurt am Main or Rhein-Main-Flughafen, is located near Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 12 kilometres from the city centre. Run by Fraport, it is the largest airport in Germany, and third largest in Europe, serving as an important hub for international flights from around the world. 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 complete. 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. Because of under-capacity in Frankfurt, Lufthansa divides traffic between Frankfurt and Munich's Franz Josef Strauß International Airport where possible.

Contents

[edit] Importance

Frankfurt currently serves more destinations (265 non-stop destinations) than London Heathrow Airport, but in terms of passenger traffic Frankfurt is third in Europe, behind Heathrow 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 Airport (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 Airport (1,343,930 metric tonnes).

[edit] 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.

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]

[edit] Structure and function

Image:AirportFrankfurt fromair.jpg
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.

[edit] Terminal 1

Image:Frankfurt Airport.jpg
Frankfurt Airport
Image:AirportFrankfurt terminal1.jpg
Terminal 1
Image:Skytrains connecting concourse A and B (Terminal 1) of Frankfurt Airport.JPG
Skytrains connecting concourses A and B of Terminal 1 pass each other

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 three levels, the departure level in the upper deck with the check-in counters and 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 parkings 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.

[edit] Concourse A

Concourse A has gates on two levels, with gates numbered A51 through A65 positioned directly above gates numbered A08 through A42 [2].

  • Adria Airways (Ljubljana,Vienna)
  • Austrian Airlines (Vienna)
  • Cirrus Airlines (Billund [ends March 29] , Basle/Mulhouse)
  • 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, Athens, Atlanta, Bahrain, Baku, Bangalore, Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi, Barcelona, Basel/Mulhouse, Beijing, Beirut, Belgrade, Berlin-Tegel, Bergen [starts March 30], Bilbao, Billund [begins March 30], Birmingham, Bologna, Boston, Bristol [begins March 30, 2008], Brussels, Bucharest-Otopeni, Budapest, Buenos Aires-Ezeiza, Cairo, Calgary [begins April 14, 2008], Cape Town, Caracas, Casablanca, Chennai, Chicago-O'Hare, Cluj-Napoca [begins April 2008], Copenhagen, Dallas/Fort Worth, Dammam, Delhi, Denver, Detroit, Doha, Dresden, 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, Katowice, Kazan, Khartoum, Kiev-Boryspil, Kolkata, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait, Lagos, Lahore, Larnaca, Leipzig/Halle, Linz, Lisbon, London-City, London-Heathrow, Los Angeles, Luanda [begins April 1, 2008], Madrid, Manchester, Manila, Marseille, Mexico City, Miami, Milan-Linate, Milan-Malpensa, Minsk, Moscow-Sheremetyevo, Münster/Osnabrück, Mumbai, Munich, Muscat, Nagoya-Centrair, Nanjing [begins March 31, 2008], New York-JFK, Newark, Nice, Nizhniy Novgorod, Nuremberg, Orlando, 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, Seattle/Tacoma [begins March 30, 2008], Seoul-Incheon, Shanghai-Pudong, Singapore, Sofia, Split, Stavanger, Stockholm-Arlanda, Stuttgart, Tallinn, Tehran-Imam Khomeini, Tel Aviv, Tokyo-Narita, Toulouse, Toronto-Pearson, Tripoli, Tunis, Turin, Ufa, Vancouver, Venice, Verona, Vienna, Vilnius, Warsaw, Washington-Dulles, Zagreb, Zürich)
  • Luxair (Luxembourg)
  • Scandinavian Airlines System (Copenhagen, Gothenburg-Landvetter, Oslo, Stockholm-Arlanda)
  • Spanair (Madrid)
  • Swiss International Air Lines (Zürich)

[edit] Concourse B

[edit] Concourse C

[edit] Terminal 2

Image:AirportFrankfurt terminal2.jpg
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.

[edit] Concourse D

[edit] Concourse E

Image:Frankfurt skyline 003.jpg
Terminal 2, Skytrain

[edit] 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]

[edit] 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.

[edit] Ground transportation

Image:Flughafen-Fernbahnsteig Fahrstuhl-Frankfurt am Main.JPG
Airport Long-Distance Rail Station
Image:Fraport Anreise modalsplit 2006.png
Modal split of means of transport of passengers departing from Frankfurt airport in 2006

To the land side, Frankfurt Airport is well connected with two railway stations and a location at one of the most important points in the German Autobahn network, the intersection of the A3 and the A5 at the Frankfurt Interchange.

[edit] Rail

The Frankfurt (Main) Regional Station was opened in 1972 together with 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 east, to Frankfurt central station (journey time 11 minutes), the four stations in the central Citytunnel, and to points further to the east of Frankfurt such as Offenbach and Hanau; and to the west to Rüsselsheim, Mainz and Wiesbaden. 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. A ticket to Frankfurt costs €3.55, and must be purchased before going down to the platform, either at a vending machine or the Deutsche Bahn ticket counter.

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 station, as do some long distance trains, especially at night when the long distance station (see below) is closed.

The Frankfurt (Main) Long Distance 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 the Airport train station, taking slightly 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 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.

The tracks are numbered from 1 to 3 in the regional station and 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.

[edit] Road

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.

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.

[edit] 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.[3]

[edit] 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 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.

[edit] See also

[edit] 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. [1]
  3. ^ Statistical data prepared by Fraport department MVG-MF based on polls conducted in the departure lounges every four days

[edit] External links

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