Munich – The Federal Ministry of Transport is pushing for a quick solution for a direct train connection to the airport.
"I think an airport regional express is possible and I'm surprised that Bavaria isn't doing anything about it," said the state secretary in the ministry, Michael Theurer, to the "Münchner Merkur".
The FDP politician is also the Federal Government Commissioner for Rail Transport.
According to Theurer, the express train from Munich Central Station would take the S1 route and branch off to the airport.
In contrast to the S1, however, it would only stop in Neufahrn and Feldmoching.
According to an earlier calculation, the journey time would be 26 minutes.
For comparison: the S1 now takes 45 minutes for the route, while the S8 from the main station takes 40 minutes.
A feasibility study was carried out in 1997
Theurer refers to a rather old feasibility study by the Vieregg/Rössler office.
In 1997, after discussions with the airport and the Bavarian railway company, the traffic planners classified an Airport Express as feasible.
The former head of the traffic planning department at the airport, Thomas Hindelang, also believes that the older concept can still be implemented.
For a while, platform 25 in Munich Central Station was even reserved for the Airport Express.
The aim is to increase the so-called modal split in favor of the railways.
According to the Bavarian Ministry of Finance from 2019, only 34 percent of passengers reach the airport with the S-Bahn, 32 percent drive their own car. Eleven percent use a taxi, eight percent rent a car and 15 percent prefer transfer services such as buses or shared taxis.
The Freising Greens member of the state parliament, Johannes Becher, had asked for the figures.