In front of the large wave of travel
Airport chief promises higher punctuality in summer
At Frankfurt Airport, passengers should not wait that long in summer. The problems from the Corona period are solved, says the airport boss. New trouble threatens from a different corner.
The head of Frankfurt Airport promised passengers for the summer a much more punctual operation. When handling the aircraft, the punctuality level of before the Corona period will be reached, says the CEO of the operating company Fraport, Stefan Schulte, at an event of the aviation press club. Despite a further increase in flight movements by around 5 percent, around 80 percent of the machines should start and land on time at the largest German airport.
Criticism of flight protection
According to Schulte, Fraport has solved the operational problems from the restart after pandemic and has sufficiently trained staff on board. In the coming years, the manager expects problems from airspace that will be becoming increasingly narrower. The reasons are additional military exercises, airspace locks because of the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East as well as the rising volume of air throughout Europe.
Schulte criticizes that the European flight protection continued to have uniform IT solutions and in some countries, not a sufficient number of pilots. The additionally narrowed airspace is now the “main factor for delays”. Schulte says: “In the end you will have to organize the air space differently.” He expects a lengthy process because nobody has the power to put European flight protection on a uniform IT system. At best, it could be about optimizing the interfaces.
The passengers in Frankfurt will be able to use new infrastructure in the coming year. Schulte explains that the acceptance of commissioning the new terminal 3 in the south of the airport. The approximately 4 billion euro building is expected to go online with an annual capacity of 19 million passengers from Easter 2026.
The Fraport boss announced that all airlines that have been located in Terminal 2 would initially move there in “Two to four waves”. This process will take between three and four months. Then the Terminal 2 should be closed and renovated over several years. Lufthansa and its partners from the Star Alliance remain in Terminal 1 as usual.
dpa
Source: Stern
