Frankfurt Airport: No problems with fire protection – terminal remains according to plan

Work on the third passenger terminal at Germany’s largest airport in Frankfurt is progressing as planned. A few days ago, the authorities inspected the middle gate H, and the fire protection technology also meets the experts’ requirements. “We are making very good progress,” says the head of the operator Fraport, Stefan Schulte, visibly proud during a tour of the construction site on Monday. The MDax group also announces that the cost framework of four billion euros will be adhered to “plus/minus 100 million”.

Not the same mistakes as with BER

The Fraport makers are smart enough not to draw a comparison with the capital’s BER airport, which finally went online in 2020 after numerous bad planning with significant additional costs and a nine-year delay. Despite comparable dimensions, something similar with the T3 should definitely be avoided. It looks like the Frankfurt-based company’s measures have taken effect: the project was encapsulated into an independent GmbH, with a “design freeze” preventing constant replanning from an early stage. This is the basis for the smooth running of the construction site, says the managing director of the Fraport Expansion South project company, Harald Rohr.

The terminal, with an initial annual capacity of 19 million passengers, would be roughly the same size as the fourth largest German airport in Düsseldorf. It can be expanded to accommodate up to 25 million passengers and, according to Schulte, will initially replace Terminal 2 “after Easter 2026”, which needs to be completely renovated after more than 30 years of operation. The airlines housed there, such as Air France, British Airways and Emirates, are moving to the new building in the south of the airport. Top dog Lufthansa and its partners from the Star Alliance remain in Terminal 1 as usual.

A gate has been finished for years

The Corona crisis hit Germany’s largest airport hard, but it also took a lot of pressure off of the expansion that had already begun. This year, the previous record of around 70.5 million passengers from 2019 will again be far from being reached. When Pier G was completed in 2022 as the first section of the new terminal, no one needed it – especially not the low-cost airlines like Ryanair, for which “Pier G” was actually intended. Since then, the part of the building has been in “standstill operation” and is being kept alive by a small Fraport team. Whether Ryanair will ever return to Frankfurt Airport is anyone’s guess. The Irish are currently further reducing their offerings in Germany due to high taxes and fees.

Up to 2,000 workers work simultaneously on the construction site of the new terminal every day. The construction of the 5.6 kilometer long route for the new aircraft runway has been completed, with which passengers can be taken from the old terminal and the DB train stations there to the new part of the airport within 8 minutes. Otherwise, T3 can only be reached by car for the time being.

The shell of the terminal is finished, the interior work and the “software” are now being worked on. Check-in counters with a growing number of self-service baggage collection points, shops and restaurants, security checks with the latest CT technology, air conditioning, kilometers of conveyor belts for luggage and passengers alike and a number of other technical facilities. “No construction site is as versatile as that of an airport,” enthuses project manager Isabelle Silvery. Finally, computer terminals and displays are installed.

For the third pier J next summer and the central main building at the end of 2025, the remaining acceptance tests are to follow as planned before real-time tests with thousands of extras are carried out. Every single process is checked again, says Rohr. Volunteers from the Rhine-Main area are being sought for this. The employees of the shops, restaurants and airlines, numbering in the thousands, would also have to be familiarized with the facilities before takeoff.