Frankfurt International Airport Expansion Project, Frankfurt, Germany

Frankfurt International Airport is Germany's main airport hub. It is owned by Fraport, a public body that is also responsible for running the airport. Deutsche Flugsicherung (DFS) is the authority responsible for the facility's traffic control.

The airport received nearly 53 million passengers in 2010. It is the ninth-busiest airport in the world and the third-busiest in Europe. The facility handles 2.09 million tonnes of airfreight and airmail a year, and ccounts for over 32% of Germany's passenger air traffic and 63% of airfreight traffic.

Frankfurt airport employs around 70,000 people, but the completion of the expansion will allow it to employ an additional 97,000 people. Expansion work began in 2009 with an investment of €4bn.

Runway capacity

Frankfurt airport's current runway capacity of 80 coordinated takeoff and landings each hour falls short of the demand for up to 100 aircraft movements an hour. Other European hubs such as Amsterdam (Schipol), Paris (Charles de Gaulle) and Madrid are experimenting with hourly movements approaching 120, having already attained 90 movements an hour.

Frankfurt airport expansion projects

The expansion of Frankfurt airport began in 2005 and includes the construction of a new landing runway and a third passenger terminal (terminal 3), doubling the retail space at terminals 1 and 2 to 20,000m² (completed in 2007) and providing high-speed rail services. The Airport City Mall, which opened in January 2007, was fully redesigned and reopened in March 2010. The mall was modified and expanded to connect to major car parks, the regional train station and terminal 1.

The site of the new landing runway is located partly in the Kelsterbach Forest (the Mönchwald), which has caused concern for environmental groups.

The northwest runway requires 217ha of land , including the connecting taxiways to the apron. Woodland use amounted to 162ha of protected forest.

The runway came into service in 2011 and allows the airport to handle 90 movements an hour. By 2020, the runway will be able to handle 700,000 aircraft a year. The runway was initially due to be in service in 2006-07; however, environmental concerns over a chemical factory held up the process.

There were also major objections from the town of Kelsterbach and the Bund fur Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland, an environmental organisation. In August 2008, following the Hesse Economics Ministry zoning approval for the runway, the airport started preliminary work for the runway including ground water monitoring, planning for the relocation of protected species, surveying for buried munitions from the war and soil testing.

Terminal 1 expansion

In October 2005, Fraport instigated a major expansion of terminal 1 that raised the capacity of the main terminal by four million passengers a year. Both the arrivals and departures levels of hall C were extended 40m eastwards to expand the floor space to 25,000m². This allowed 40 additional check-in counters to be added on two levels and four 90m baggage carousels, as well as 900m² for shopping facilities.

Fraport spent €115m on the hall C project, including €10m for the new baggage conveyor system and modernising the fire safety equipment in the adjoining terminal areas.

Planning for this major project started in April 2003 and preliminary work began in July 2005 (architectural design by Christoph Mäckler of Frankfurt). Completion of the building shell was achieved in mid-2006 and the inauguration took place in June 2007. Because of the extra capacity, the enlarged halls help to bridge capacity requirements until the planned terminal 3 at the south of the airport is ready.

The westward expansion of terminal 1, called Pier A-plus, is under construction and will be completed in 2012. This will increase the terminal's annual capacity by six million passengers and will provide seven new parking positions for wide-body aircraft.

Runway project

The new north-west runway (the fourth at the airport) is 2,800m (9,240ft) long. The centre-line separation from the existing north runway is approximately 1,400m. This will allow simultaneous landing operations on these two runways (more operations per hour), a feat that was not possible on the old parallel runways because they are too close together.

The site of the new landing runway is located partly in the Kelsterbach Forest (the Mönchwald), which has caused concern for environmental groups.

The northwest runway requires 217ha of land, including the connecting taxiways to the apron. Woodland use amounted to 162ha of protected forest.

The runway came into service in 2011 and allows the airport to handle 90 movements an hour. By 2020, the runway will be able to handle 700,000 aircraft a year. The runway was initially due to be in service in 2006-07; however, environmental concerns over a chemical factory held up the process.

There were also major objections from the town of Kelsterbach and the Bund fur Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland, an environmental organisation. In August 2008, following the Hesse Economics Ministry zoning approval for the runway, the airport started preliminary work for the runway including ground water monitoring, planning for the relocation of protected species, surveying for buried munitions from the war and soil testing.

New terminal 3

At the end of 2005, the US air base land in the south of Frankfurt Airport reverted to the ownership of Fraport. A new passenger terminal was then planned for construction on the reclaimed site, which will increase the airport's capacity of 56 million passengers a year (2005) to 81 million.

The design by Professor Christoph Mäckler was chosen from an international design competition of 45 architects. 75 aircraft stands and additional taxiways are to be built to support operations of the new terminal.

In total, 305ha will be needed for the new terminal 3, associated aircraft positions and taxiways, new freight facilities, maintenance buildings and car parks. About 188ha of this space can be provided within the existing airport boundary; a further 108ha outside the fence will also be required.

The new terminal will be built in phases up to 2017. Fraport has estimated the costs for the new building at €1.1bn.

The 250m-wide and 16m-high hall of the new steel and glass terminal, housing the check-in desks, will become the airport's modern architectural landmark. Security procedures will take place in a separate section after which the passengers will enter a large hall containing retail shops.

When complete, the terminal will have four airplane fingers of between 350m and 650m length; this will allow 50 aircraft to be comfortably parked at any one time.

The airport's Sky Line people-mover and central baggage system will be extended to terminal 3, thus ensuring quick transfer times at the new terminal. Passengers who arrive from terminal 1 or the long-distance railway station in the northern section of the airport will therefore be able to cover the 3.5km stretch to terminal 3 within eight minutes.

In order for the third terminal to be linked to the airport's central baggage system, a tunnel system for luggage has to be built under the two takeoff and landing runways, using similar mining technology as was used to build Frankfurt's underground railway.

A380 maintenance base

The A380 maintenance hangar was inaugurated in 2008. Lufthansa and other international airlines plan to operate new wide-body aircraft from Frankfurt. These operations required a new maintenance hangar, which was built to the south of the airport site (investment €150m).

The 22-acre site was handed over to Lufthansa in June 2005 on a 65-year lease, but a protest by German green environmentalists hampered construction, which started in June 2006.

The hangar's first phase opened in January 2007 by Lufthansa Technik. The facility, which is approximately 350m long, 140m wide and 45m high, with a floor space of 20,000m², offers space for two A380s or three Boeing 747s, and when fully completed in 2015 will be capable of accommodating up to four A380 aircraft simultaneously.

The new hangar, which is Europe's largest aircraft maintenance facility, was designed by Gerkan, Marg & Partner Architects of Hamburg, Germany.

The A380 fulfils a big role in the future of long-haul air transportation. For hub airports like Frankfurt Airport, this means that only airports served by the A380 will maintain their positions in the premier league of major airports.

Pier C/D changes

In March 2008, pier C/D T1 and the terminal 2 connecting building opened. JSK was the architect. The project took 20 months to complete and required an investment of €340m. The pier has an additional capacity of four million passengers a year and two-level boarding of 550 passengers a flight ready for the A380.

In addition, there is access to the new 90m-long baggage carousels of hall C. Passengers are able to access Pier C/D via a 320m-long connecting corridor from the expanded hall C and can then board A380s on two levels. For the A380, there are three docking positions each equipped with three passenger bridges for simultaneous two-level boarding.

The open and expandable gates of pier C/D are over two levels. Level 2 is for economy passengers, while level 3, with the Senator lounge and business gates, is reserved for priority passengers.

Environmental concerns

The objections to the airport's expansion come mainly from environmental grounds. Despite the beneficial economic impact of Frankfurt airport for the regional economy, there is considerable public hostility to further development.

To address the concerns of the public towards issues such as aircraft noise and the airport expansion leading to pollution, Fraport developed a ten-point programme, which includes promoting other transportation modes, limiting night flights, funding noise insulation programmes, increasing charges for night time landing, and mandatory introduction of low noise approach and departure procedures at night.

In addition, Fraport introduced the CASA programme, which is a voluntary purchase programme for residents around the airport who feel they need to move away from the area because of the additional noise and pollution.