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Ghost pier in Frankfurt (Main): 13 gates and 22 check-in counters
Photo: --- / dpa
Ten years after the last terminal expansion, the construction of the new pier at Frankfurt Airport is complete.
This was announced by a spokesman for the airport operator Fraport.
The operator is expected to take over the building in a few weeks.
Until then, the commissioned companies will check whether all the facilities are working.
But passengers will not be able to enter the building for years to come.
Berlin's capital airport BER went online nine years late, Pier G in Frankfurt am Main is about four years too early.
The corona crisis has also severely slowed down the largest German airport on its apparently unstoppable growth course.
Nobody currently needs an additional capacity of around five million passengers if last year there were around 45 million fewer guests than in the record year 2019.
The airport was clearly congested
The third passenger terminal in the south of the site has been planned for a long time, will cost four billion euros and is probably also necessary if the airport's four-lane system, which has been expanded since 2011, is to be fully utilised.
According to the planning approval, more than 700,000 flight movements are technically possible in Frankfurt, while just 262,000 take-offs and landings were counted in 2021.
The two existing terminals were significantly overloaded in 2019 with around 514,000 flight movements and 70.5 million passengers.
Under pressure from new providers such as Irish Ryanair, Fraport decided in 2018 to bring forward the second construction phase of the new terminal and to complete Pier G by 2022.
This is how it happened: With initially 13 gates, 22 check-in counters and nine building positions for the jets, up to five million guests a year can theoretically be processed there.
She would not have expected all that much comfort at first, because for the time being »Pier G« is neither connected to the baggage system nor to the airport's own elevated passenger railway.
For the time being, direct arrival is only possible by car or bus, since there is also no S-Bahn station.
Ryanair surprisingly withdrew
But the pandemic has slowed the business of low-cost airlines: After five years, Ryanair announced in January that it would withdraw completely from Frankfurt for the 2022 summer flight schedule.
Competitor Wizz Air has not landed on the Main for a long time.
Attracted by the initially reduced fees, the Irish stationed up to ten aircraft at Rhein-Main Airport and continued to trim their neighboring Hunsrück site in Hahn.
When Fraport increased take-off and landing fees by 4.3 percent for the summer, Ryanair decided, somewhat surprisingly, to completely withdraw from the Lufthansa hub.
Ryanair manager Andreas Gruber has already indicated that this decision does not have to be permanent.
He rates Pier G as a "very efficient terminal building," he said just a few days after the withdrawal was announced.
Operator Fraport now only wants to open Pier G together with the rest of Terminal 3 and the other Piers H and J in 2026, when “after Corona” there will be full operation in the sky again.
Until then, the ghost pier should run in so-called "dormant operation", which, according to Fraport, requires a low double-digit number of personnel.
The MDax group does not want to comment on the costs.
If necessary, the actual commissioning could also be brought forward, but only with a lead time of around 12 months.
You would need this time to check the processes with extras and to rent and set up the shops.
jlk/dpa
