After the pandemic is over, almost as many people want to travel by plane again as before Corona – with corresponding consequences for the environment, infrastructure and flight operations. The approaching start of the holidays in the populous southern federal states means absolute peak activity, especially for Frankfurt Airport, but also for Munich and Stuttgart. The Hessians will start with Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland from the end of the school day on Friday (July 21). Despite the tense staff situation, airports and airlines are certain that they can avoid chaos like last year.
Frankfurt Airport CEO Stefan Schulte explains when presenting the passenger figures for the first half of the year: “The generally orderly course of operations in the first half of the year makes us cautiously optimistic for Frankfurt and shows that the numerous measures introduced are taking effect.” In addition to improved cooperation, this includes above all an artificially reduced supply. In order to keep the flight plan stable, the hourly limit value of the maximum possible flight movements was lowered in consultation with air traffic control – and is not expected to return to the original value until October.
Because the staff has not yet returned to the pre-crisis level despite extensive recruitment, the current traffic peaks are putting a heavy strain on the airport system. For the first time in almost four years, there were three days in June with more than 200,000 passengers in Frankfurt. Although that is still almost 40,000 away from the all-time record from June 2019, it is a challenge given the tense situation.
According to its own statements, Lufthansa, as the largest provider, flies much more stably and punctually than in the previous year. Airline boss Jens Ritter reports that more than 1,000 new people have been hired for their own operations and automated processes have been advanced. Particular attention is also paid to starting the first flight in the morning very punctually in order not to drag delays into the entire circulation. In both Munich and Frankfurt, new types of CT scanners are speeding up passenger and hand luggage checks, and self-check-in via smartphone is becoming the norm. Fraport has also been organizing the deployment of personnel at the control lanes itself since the beginning of the year and, in its own estimation, is therefore more effective than the federal police before.
The passengers themselves can contribute to a smooth process, says Fraport Manager Alexander Laukenmann. The most important offers are digital check-in, baggage drop-off the evening before or fixed bookable time slots at the security checkpoints. Everyone should also find out what absolutely belongs in hand luggage (battery packs), what needs to be separated (liquids, electronics) and what absolutely must not be in there (knives, weapons).
If you can’t or don’t want to do without checking in at the counter, you shouldn’t come to the airport too early, says Laukenmann. He warns: “Don’t be in the terminals earlier than 2.5 hours. The check-in counters are not yet open and you ultimately have unnecessary waiting times that could be avoided. Two hours is enough for guests who only bring hand luggage completely off before departure.”
Fraport hasn’t been this bold for a long time. In fact, the chaos in Europe’s skies has not materialized so far, even after strong growth rates compared to the previous year. Despite difficult weather conditions and the two-week “Air Defender” maneuver, there were fewer delays in June than in the same month last year, reports the European air traffic control organization Eurocontrol in Brussels.
On individual days, the European controllers direct almost as many flights through the airspace, which has become narrower as a result of the war, as in 2019. The pre-Corona peak of more than 37,000 flights on June 28, 2019 is only around 3000 flight movements away these days. For the year to date, Eurocontrol indicates a gap of around ten percent compared to the pre-corona level.
As in the previous year, Germany is not one of the hotspots for air traffic, which has regained strength despite all climate concerns. Reasons are the domestic flights cut to a good half and the fact that the low-cost airline Ryanair in particular flies a wide berth around the German market. The Irish are concentrating their immense growth on Italy, Spain, Poland and Albania, where lower access costs and fees are attractive.
The race to catch up, which has been slowed down in this way, means that the CO2 emissions from air traffic in Germany are still 14.3 percent below the value from July 2019, according to Eurocontrol. The industry association BDL sees the offer at German airports for the second half of the year at 85 percent of the pre-crisis level, while in the rest of Europe the traffic values from 2019 will be fully reached again on average.
