A Sample Feature From Aviation News FLUGHAFEN MÜNCHEN EXPANDS FOR THE NEW CENTURYWhile London Heathrow prepares to begin work on the long-delayed Terminal Five, Munich Airport is responding to the predicted expansion in air travel by working hard on completing its new Terminal 2. The Editor reports on the progress and changes at Germany’s southern business gateway.
The present terminal area at Munich International Airport dominated by the arched roof of the MAC on Munich Airport Centre and the control tower. Behind, work is underway on Terminal 2, (All Photos, Munich Airport.. Viewing Munich Airport from the narrow outside balcony near the top of the 255-ft high control tower takes both a strong stomach and a cool head. Yet, even when buffeted by a cold winter wind that threatens to tear you over the handrail, the panorama laid out below is impressive enough to forget the fear. Looking west across the flat Bavarian landscape, two parallel 13,120ft (4,000m), long and 196ft (60m) wide runways bracket the substantial central terminal area with its 60 aircraft gates feeding the flights as they come and go. It is German orderliness at its most defined and it is difficult to imagine that this was a green field site only 20 years ago. Walk round the girth of the angled out tower and to the east can be seen the general aviation area and closer, the prominent scars of new building work. Here, Munich’s Terminal 2 is taking shape with accommodation stands for a further 75 aircraft and 24 jetways connecting a 3,214ft (980m)-long building in which 120 check-in counters will efficiently process passengers from 2003.
Singapore Airlines Cargo is now calling at Munich and one of its Boeing 747s is seen operating against a back-drop of cranes constructing the new terminal. At a global level, Munich has moved up in the world ranking of airports from 51 when it opened in 1992, to 37 in 2000, while among European airports, Munich is now ranked nine in the top ten. Between January and September 2001, the airport handled some 18.6 million passengers, compared with 17.4m for the same period in 2000. However, the terrorist attacks in the USA affected Munich as well as every other European airport. Seventy transatlantic flights were cancelled in the aftermath of September 11 with a 26% drop in traffic over the following months in this sector while overall, traffic declined by 12%. But the airport authorities, like most observers and operators, are confident that this downturn will only have a temporary effect on air travel and, in Munich’s case, the addition of new facilities will still be needed.
Deutsche BA Boeing 737 taxiing past the 21 piers extending from the main terminal. Five short years for T2 The requirement for a second terminal at Munich became obvious only a few years after the airport’s 1992 opening. Traffic increased at such a rate that the planners recognised that the airport’s capacity would reach its limit by the end of the decade. Forward planning in the original airport design had always made provision for such an expansion (but not so quickly) and in April 1998, Flughafen Munchen GmbH and Deutsche Lufthansa AG announced that they would jointly finance and operate a new terminal on a 60-40% basis respectively. Koch & Partner were the architects chosen for the project, designated Terminal 2, and in February 2000 construction work began. The layout involves a linear pier to the east of the current central area and running from north to south. Built on two levels, one for departing passengers and the other for those arriving, the design incorporates options for the addition of satellite extensions, should they be required in the future. The runways, taxiways and the apron areas are all of sufficient strength to accept the forthcoming 656-seat Airbus A380. As with the rest of the airport, fuel trucks will not be a feature of the servicing cavalcade of vehicles that surrounds each arriving airliner; they will only be used to refuel private aircraft. This is thanks to the maze of underground pipework carrying fuel to 220 fuelling points, known as pits, which are located at the parking areas. Ground power too is supplied via points at every parking slot. Adjacent to T2 is the Munich Airport Centre (MAC), an ‘airport city’ in the heart of the development which opened in 1999. Under an impressive arched roof with angled facades, the work of Chicago architect, Helmut Jahn, the MAC adds an urbanisation to the airport and incorporates 45 shops, conference halls, showrooms, medical centre and a travel market, all aimed at increasing revenue for the airport and giving transfer passengers in particular the chance to shop in a miniature town. Alongside the Centre is the 343-room Kempinski Hotel. Connecting the airport with the city of Munich, which is 17 miles (28km) to the south-west, is a rail service with two trains every ten minutes. While this sounds good to the average dispirited UK rail traveller in a Britain where train services appear to be in a state of collapse, the airport authorities recognise that a weakness in this area is the lack of a mainline rail link. Studies are currently under way aimed at rectifying this and a decision is expected in the near future.
Drawing of the new Terminal 2 and its position in relation to the MAC (Munich Airport Centre), Terminal 1 and the additional car park (P) which is nearing completion. Airlines at Munich Today, around 100 carriers operate services from Munich to more than 220 destinations of which some 73 undertake scheduled flights. Lufthansa remains the largest operator at the airport and now ranks Munich equally alongside Frankfurt as a parallel hub system. The German operator clearly finds the Bavarian base less restrictive with fewer of the capacity problems which are affecting Frankfurt. This is illustrated by the start of two new services by Lufthansa initiated in October 2001 to Johannesburg and Shanghai, both three times weekly. When Terminal 2 opens next year, its main user will be Lufthansa along with its StarAlliance partners. But while new services are started, others such as Munich to New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Sao Paulo, were suspended after September 11 until further notice. New users of the
airport include Singapore Airlines Cargo which is now making four
weekly round trips between Singapore, Munich and New York, while
express carrier, TNT has started five weekly flights to Luttich.
Air Seychelles has switched its once-weekly Mahe flight via Rome
from Frankfurt to Munich and tapping into the connection that links
the business centres of London and Munich, Augsburg Airways (a Lufthansa
partner) started a twice daily service to London City in October
(see AIR Pictorial, January 2002).
Aerial view of Munich International looking east. Note the staggered parallel runways, each 13,000ft in length. Maintenance hangars and the cargo area are to the right while to the left of the road and rail access in the centre are the car parks and administration buildings. Munich’s past Reim Airport was Munich’s new civil airfield when it took over commercial operations from Oberwiesenfeld aerodrome in October 1939. However, as the Second World War moved towards its final stages, Munich-Reim became an Allied target and suffered accordingly. Post-war, it was April 1948 before commercial services began using the airport again and a reconstituted Lufthansa only restarted flights from Munich on April 1, 1955. Despite lengthening the runway to handle jets, the airport’s close proximity to the city of Munich and concerns over safety prompted the setting up of a commission in March 1963 to look into possible sites for a new airport. From three likely locations, the Bavarian state government selected Erding-Nord in August 1969 as the new site for Munich II. In the meantime, Reim continued to expand to cater for an increasing number of flights and in 1977, the passenger figure exceeded five million for the first time. With planning permission agreed, construction work on the green field site for Munich II began on November 3, 1980, some 28.5km north-east of the city. However, various appeals over the use of excessive amounts of land required for the new airport forced a ‘stop work’ order being issued on April 16, 1981. Only a reduction in area and construction of two runways instead of the original three allowed work to resume in March 1985. With passenger figures at Reim topping the ten million mark at the end of 1988, the need for a new airport was clearly becoming urgent. At last, on the evening of May 16, 1992, Munich-Reim ceased operations and in a remarkable example of organisation, 700 trucks and 5,000 people transferred overnight to the new Munich International Airport which opened for business the next morning. Since then, the new airport has expanded to its present development of a second terminal and Lufthansa has remained true to its announcement in October 1995, that it would make Munich its second German hub. |
