Dresden Airport

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Dresden Airport
Dresden Airport logo.svg
DRS Terminal 1.JPG
Characteristics
ICAO code EDDC, until 1995: ETDN
IATA code DRS
Coordinates

51 ° 8 '4 "  N , 13 ° 46' 5"  E Coordinates: 51 ° 8 '4 "  N , 13 ° 46' 5"  E

Height above MSL 221 m (725  ft )
Transport links
Distance from the city center 9 km north of Dresden
Street A4, A13,B97
Local transport S-Bahn line S 2 , bus
Basic data
opening July 11, 1935
operator Dresden Airport GmbH
surface 280 ha
Terminals 1
Passengers 1,598,784 (2019)
Air freight 282 t (2018)
Flight
movements
28,583 (2019)
Capacity
( PAX per year)
3.50 million
Employees 4,064 (of which 405 at the operator) (2018)
Start-and runway
04/22 2850 m × 60 m concrete

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The Dresden Airport ( IATA code : DRS , ICAO code : EDDC ), since 2008, Dresden International , is an international commercial airport . It is located in the Klotzsche district in the north of the city of Dresden , about 110 meters above the Elbe valley . Its runway runs in a north-north-east direction, parallel to Autobahn 4 . With 1.76 million passengers, the airport ranked 14th in Germany in 2018.

In 2019, the airport recorded only 1.59 million passengers, a decrease of 9.3 percent compared to the same period in the previous year, mainly due to the insolvency of the Germania airline in February 2019, which once offered a wide range of services in Dresden.

Location and transport links

Dresden Airport, 2012

Dresden Airport is 9 kilometers north of the city center at an altitude of 230 meters above sea level. The airport area extends over 280 hectares.

The airport can be reached by car via the A4 (exit Dresden-Flughafen) and A13 as well as the B97 . There are currently around 3000 parking spaces available at the airport.

The airport can be reached by bus with the bus routes 77 and 80 of the Dresdner Verkehrsbetriebe .

The airport is connected by rail to the regional S-Bahn network through the Dresden Airport underground station, which opened in 2001 and offers direct access to the terminal. The S-Bahn line S2 runs every 30 minutes and runs via the Dresden-Klotzsche and Dresden-Neustadt stations in 21 minutes to Dresden Central Station and via Heidenau to Pirna .

The airport's catchment area includes not only western Poland but also northern Czech areas. By rail, travel times to Ústí nad Labem , Děčín and Liberec are less than two hours; Since the completion of the federal motorway 17 / Dálnice 8 in December 2006, the cities of Aussig (Ústí nad Labem) and Teplice ( Teplice ) can be reached by car in about an hour.

history

Historical classification

Old Dresden Airport on the Heller

Although Germany was forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 to maintain an air force, German military pilots were trained under secrecy as early as the Weimar Republic . First of all, the flight students were trained in light training aircraft at civilian training centers in Germany. In 1924, a secret training air base was set up near the Russian city ​​of Lipetsk and operated until 1933. Around 240 German pilots were trained there every year and new aircraft designs developed in Germany were also tested. On February 26, 1935, Adolf Hitler ordered Aviation Minister Hermann Göring to build up an air force for National Socialist Germany despite the existing ban.

The Dresden civil airport was located in Kaditz from 1913 to 1926 and from 1926 on the Heller , the latter with a terminal building near today's S-Bahn station “Industriegelände”. It no longer met the requirements of growing air traffic and could not be expanded. Two large chimneys in the immediate vicinity were particularly disturbing.

1935-1945

In 1935 a new airport was built in Klotzsche with a civil area at the southern end of the airfield and a military area at the northern end with the Klotzsche Air War School .

Military airfield

Between the time not yet eingemeindeten to Dresden Klotzsche districts and Weixdorf and Königsbrücker Street (now King Landstrasse) of were airbase  38 / III Dresden-Klotzsche and Dresden air war school klotzsche built. It was one of the four major officers' schools of the Air Force , which were completed by 1937. During the war was here with the Ju 52 also flying blind taught and practiced. The following table shows a list of selected active air units (excluding school and supplementary units) of the Air Force that were stationed here between 1934 and 1945.

From To unit equipment
December 1941 April 1942 4. (F) / Enlightenment group 121 (4th Squadron of Reconnaissance Group 121)
February 1945 April 1945 Staff, II., III./SG 4 (Staff, II. And III. Group of the battle squadron 4) Focke-Wulf Fw 190F / G
March 1945 March 1945 III./TG 2 ( III.Group of Transport Wing 2) Junkers Ju 52 / 3m
March 1945 April 1945 I./KG 4 (I. Group of Kampfgeschwader 4) Heinkel He 111H
April 1945 April 1945 14./KG 55 (14th squadron of Kampfgeschwaders 55) Junkers Ju 88C

The buildings of the air war school are an architectural relic from the Nazi era. The architects were Professors Ernst Sagebiel , Johannes Krüger and Walter Krüger . Due to years of use by Dresden Airport, the NVA and various companies, the facilities are in a relatively good condition.

The body of today's S-Bahn line to the airport was built in 1936/37 from the Klotzsche station to the former air base.

The air war school was hardly damaged by the air raids on Dresden and served in the following days as a reception and relief center for the care of bombed-out Dresden residents. On the last day of World War II, Soviet troops occupied the air base and the air war school. In the period that followed, they used the Klotzsch facilities for flight training and other military projects.

Civil airport

Dresden Airport from above
"Hansahaus", 2003

The first airliner took off from the new airport on July 11, 1935, and the old airport on the Heller was closed at the same time. The architectural landmark of the new airport facility was the terminal and administration building by the architect Kurt Otto, which was modern for the time at the south-east end of the airfield and was named "Hansahaus" after Deutsche Lufthansa AG. The building complex was considered one of the outstanding buildings of the 1930s in Dresden.

Air traffic developed positively: the most important airline was the one from Berlin via Dresden to Prague and Vienna , which was served jointly by Lufthansa and Austrian and Czechoslovak companies. There were still flight connections to Breslau, Cologne, Halle / Leipzig, Hanover, Hamburg and other cities. Commercial aircraft flew to Dresden until the spring of 1940. After that, civil aviation ceased as a result of the Second World War.

1945 to 1990

Klotzsche was incorporated into Dresden in 1950. After the runway had been considerably extended to the north at the expense of Weixdorf and the airport area and thus also the Dresden city area had been expanded, civil flight operations were resumed in 1955. On June 16, 1957, the first scheduled plane of Deutsche Lufthansa of the GDR landed in Dresden-Klotzsche. On February 2, 1958, a Soviet Tu-104 in Dresden opened the era of jet-propelled commercial aircraft at GDR airports. A charter plane from the Hungarian Malev transported tourists to Budapest for the first time on May 22, 1959 . A curiosity shaped the daily routine between 1955 and 1960: Since there were insufficient facilities for passenger handling at the airport, this took place in the vicinity of Dresden Central Station . The processed passengers drove from there by buses directly to the machines waiting on the tarmac.

The aircraft factories built on the former military site of the airport became famous for the design and construction of the four- engine transport machine 152 , the first prototype of which crashed on March 4, 1959 during its second test flight.

From 1960, Deutsche Lufthansa of the GDR and later Interflug took over the civil part of the airport; she continued the domestic air traffic and handled the passengers again at the airport. On May 3, 1967, their first international airline went into operation.

An-26 of the TS-24 in Dresden, 1990

In 1962 the National People's Army took over part of the airport. The aircraft factory became the Dresden aircraft yard, which repaired military aircraft . In the period from October 22 to 25, 1963, the later Transport Fliegerstaffel 24 (TS-24) of the NVA air force was relocated from Dessau to Dresden-Klotzsche. In the period up to 1982, the military aircraft fleet comprised aircraft of the types An-2 and Il-14P as well as helicopters Mi-2 . In 1980 the first of 12 An-26s entered service.

The development at the military airfield took place in the field of tension between the interests of the air force , aircraft hangar and civil aviation. While the latter lost its importance domestically and was discontinued in 1980, the international offer was expanded. At the end of the 1970s, Dresden u. a. Regular connections to Budapest , Moscow , Leningrad , Sofia , Varna , Burgas and Poprad . The traffic performance rose steadily - in 1962 around 54,000 passengers were handled, in 1985 it was 390,000.

The runway was rebuilt and the airport was extensively reconstructed in 1988 and 1989. On October 31, 1989, scheduled services were resumed at the reconstructed Dresden Airport. As a result of the political upheaval, Interflug set up a first line to Hamburg in December. In the coming months, connections to important West German and West European cities followed.

Expansion since 1990

Apron of Dresden Airport
Start from Dresden Airport in direction south-southwest, in the background the Dresden Elbe Valley

After German reunification, the airport was transferred to the newly founded Flughafen Dresden GmbH , whose shareholders are now Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG , the Free State of Saxony, the district of Meißen and the district of Bautzen. Planning and first work on modernizing and expanding the airport began.

From 1990 to 1993, military use was limited to the operation of aircraft belonging to Transport Fliegerstaffel 24 of the former NVA air forces, which had been taken over by the Bundeswehr Air Force . 1993 the meanwhile air transport group Dresden-Klotzsche named Verband des Lufttransportgeschwader 65 was dissolved; the planes were sold.

After the political change , the civil significance of the airport rose by leaps and bounds: in 1992 more than a million passengers were handled, in 1995 1.7 million. In 1992, an extension next to the "Hansahaus" was put into operation. Its capacity, however, was limited. In 1995 an extension went into operation, which had arisen from a neighboring hall of the aviation industry. At the same time, all functional areas of the airport were extensively modernized.

By spring 2001, the new airport terminal was built from Hall 219 of the former GDR company VEB Elektromat Dresden . In addition, a large number of additional works on the airport's infrastructure were completed: a motorway feeder, expanded flight operations areas, new technical halls, a weather radar and environmental protection systems. In 2001 the City of Dresden awarded the Erlwein Prize to the Dresden-based architecture and urban planning office heizHaus for the design of the weather radar tower .

In 2011, 1.92 million passengers were handled, the highest number in history.

After the new terminal opened, further investments were made. The plant fire brigade received a new hall with emergency rooms and space for all the technology including the vehicle fleet. A logistics center with storage and office space was created for shipping companies, which now comprises three halls. A fourth hall is being planned. In July 2006, construction of the new runway began while operations continued parallel to the old runway. The runway, designed for a service life of three decades, was handed over on September 6, 2007. The old train was then demolished. With the new runway, aircraft with higher payloads can now take off from Dresden; Limitations regarding a too short take-off run are eliminated. Between 1990 and 2007 a total of around 500 million euros was invested in the expansion of the airport.

The architecturally valuable airport building complex “Hansahaus” from 1935 was demolished in 2010. In its place, a flight operations area was opened in December 2011, which also offers space for a second hall for the accommodation of aircraft.

In 2019 there will be around 164 starts per week to 17 destinations.

Capacity and Security

The airport has a handling capacity of 3.5 million passengers per year and 1500 passengers per hour. Optionally, the west wing of the terminal can be expanded, which would mean that the airport could then handle 4.5 million passengers per year.

There are 28 parking positions for aircraft; 6 parking positions are equipped with passenger boarding bridges. There are a total of 13 gates with a docking system, including the positions with passenger boarding bridges.

The airport is designed for aircraft up to 80 m wingspan (ICAO aircraft category F). That is, z. B. the aircraft Airbus A380 and Antonov An-124 can land, take off and be handled.

The airfield has a capacity of 30 flight movements per hour. Runway 22 has an instrument landing system ; approaches to all-weather flight operation level IIIb are possible here. The secondary approach direction 04 also has an instrument landing system, but only approaches according to all-weather flight operation level I are permitted here.

Night flight restrictions have been in effect since October 2008 . According to this, flight movements are permitted as scheduled take-offs and landings in commercial scheduled and charter traffic until 11:30 p.m. and again from 5:30 a.m. Delayed landings and take-offs are permitted until midnight or from 5:00 a.m.

Economical meaning

For the Dresden metropolitan area , the airport is an important location and economic factor that offers direct connections to important German and European economic centers. In 2011, Mitteldeutsche Airport Holding employed 365 people in its subsidiaries Flughafen Dresden GmbH and PortGround GmbH . In 2011, 130 companies with 3,089 employees were based in the vicinity of the airport. The most important companies include Elbe Flugzeugwerke GmbH and IMA Materialforschung und Verwaltungstechnik GmbH as well as a number of logistics and service companies.

The medium-term development prospects of Dresden Airport as an international commercial airport are assessed as moderate due to the proximity to the airports in Leipzig / Halle and Berlin , especially if the rail connection to Berlin is further upgraded. In the 2010s, Prague Airport - especially since the construction of a new motorway connection - increasingly positioned itself in competition with Dresden Airport, also and especially in outbound tourism traffic.

According to industry information, the airport closed 2012 with a loss of 9.25 million euros. While operating profit was achieved, depreciations on the terminal and the runway resulted in negative figures overall. While the result from ordinary business activities was still EUR -8.89 million in the 2013 financial year, this was slightly improved in 2014 to EUR -7.83 million.

Airport shareholder

The majority shareholder of the airport is the Mitteldeutsche Airport Holding AG with 93.996% , which also holds the majority stake in Leipzig / Halle Airport . The shareholders of Mitteldeutsche Airport AG are exclusively local authorities : the Free State of Saxony with 77.29%, the State of Saxony-Anhalt with 18.54%, the city of Dresden with 1.87%, the city of Leipzig with 2.1% and the city of Halle (Saale) with 0.2%. The remaining direct shares in Dresden Airport are owned by the Free State of Saxony with 4.84%, the district of Meißen with 0.58% and the district of Bautzen with 0.58%.

Since November 1, 2013, the CEO of Mitteldeutsche Airport Holding Markus Kopp has also been CEO of Flughafen Dresden GmbH .

Traffic figures

Handling a Boeing 737 of British Airways
Dresden Airport - traffic figures
operating
year
Passenger
volume
Air freight
in tons
Airmail
in tons
Flight
movements
1990 203,541 209 9,015
1991 608.746 300 2,435 25,330
1992 1,018,501 718 4,765 37,430
1993 1,323,504 912 5,604 45.156
1994 1,512,036 1,135 6,026 47,363
1995 1,701,342 1,300 6,079 49,581
1996 1,682,032 1,476 7,041 46,514
1997 1,676,221 1,367 6,166 43,271
1998 1,696,518 1,232 6.124 42,117
1999 1,755,804 1,220 5,582 42,200
2000 1,766,868 1,455 4,285 38.019
2001 1,649,084 877 4,301 34,668
2002 1,524,886 796 0 35,379
2003 1,559,400 649 0 33,024
2004 1,626,248 425 0 34,863
2005 1,788,797 441 0 36,301
2006 1,842,311 574 0 37,343
2007 1,854,378 427 5 36,151
2008 1,860,364 343 0 36,968
2009 1,722,926 505 1.6 34,798
2010 1,847,166 379 1.3 35,234
2011 1,921,633 394 35,087
2012 1,891,123 264 32,735
2013 1,757,950 180 28,979
2014 1,760,407 166 30,357
2015 1,726,471 182 30.197
2016 1,667,880 223 30,380
2017 1,709,277 455 29,216
2018 1,762,175 282 30,273
Busiest flight routes from DRS
rank target Passengers
2018
change Passengers
2017
Starts
2018
change Starts
2017
01 GermanyGermany Frankfurt 170,062   -2.93% 175.194 1,699   -1.79% 1,730
02 GermanyGermany Munich 109,590   -4.98% 115.331 1,582   -1.74% 1,610
03 GermanyGermany Dusseldorf 077,042   -22.08% 098,868 1,041   -16.72% 1,250
04th GermanyGermany Cologne / Bonn 066,970   -6.26% 071,445 .0710   -9.9% .0788
05 SpainSpain Palma de Mallorca 054,372   9.04% 049,866 .0460   15.87% .0397
06th TurkeyTurkey Antalya 051.907   65.15% 031,430 .0360   57.89% .0228
07th GermanyGermany Stuttgart 045,530   -12.73% 052.172 .0711   23.44% .0576
08th SwitzerlandSwitzerland Zurich 043,295   -0.45% 043,490 .0534   0.38% .0532
09 SwitzerlandSwitzerland Basel-Mulhouse 030,075   -2.91% 030,976 .0206   0.98% .0204
10 EgyptEgypt Hurghada 028,584   49.72% 019.092 .0206   51.47% .0136
This statistic only includes starts. (No landings)
Busiest flight routes by country from DRS
rank target Passengers
2018
change Passengers
2017
Starts
2018
change Starts
2017
01 GermanyGermany Germany 472.457   -9.12% 519.873 6,925   -4.75% 7,270
02 SpainSpain Spain 102,658   14.89% 089,354 .0932   19.03% .0783
03 SwitzerlandSwitzerland Switzerland 073,470   -1.41% 074,522 .0757   -0.39% .0760
04th TurkeyTurkey Turkey 056,627   66.81% 033,948 .0394   55.12% .0254
05 GreeceGreece Greece 045,876   17.25% 039.127 .0399   28.3% .0311
06th EgyptEgypt Egypt 035.161   76.69% 019,900 .0259   78.62% .0145
07th NetherlandsNetherlands Netherlands 027,366   34.23% 020,387 .0402   15.52% .0348
08th RussiaRussia Russia 022,081   1.56% 021,741 .0421   17.93% .0357
09 BulgariaBulgaria Bulgaria 011,847   16.43% 010.175 .0088   27.54% .0069
10 PortugalPortugal Portugal 010,704   0.15% 010,688 .0098   -7.55% .0106
This statistic only includes starts. (No landings)

Other / special features

From 2002 to 2010 one of the largest nightclubs in Dresden, called “Terminal 1 - The Airport Club”, was located in the disused Terminal 1.

Experimental setup for structural
load tests of the Airbus A380

During the flood of the century in summer 2002, 1234 additional flights were coordinated at Dresden Airport. They were used to rescue people from floodplains, to evacuate hospitals and to transport sandbags and aids. The former Terminal 2 served as alternative quarters for the flooded theater workshops of the Semperoper and the theater.

In September 2005, structural load tests on the Airbus A380 began in a hall in the northeast of the airport grounds at IABG and Dresden-based IMA GmbH Dresden; this is the world's largest fatigue strength test ever carried out on a complete airframe of a civil aircraft.

In December 2006, nuclear waste was flown from Dresden Airport to a nuclear research center in Podolsk near Moscow . It consisted of fuel rods and pellets in the form of 200 kilograms of highly enriched and 100 kilograms of weakly enriched uranium and came from the dismantled Rossendorf research reactor .

On February 6, 2007, an Airbus A380 visited the airport using the so-called touch-and-go method to practice landing approaches. A total of five of these touch-and-go maneuvers were carried out.

On June 4, 2009, US President Barack Obama landed in the Air Force One presidential plane at Dresden International Airport. A day later he met with Chancellor Angela Merkel in the historic old town. The President's visit had been prepared intensively for weeks.

On January 5th and 6th, 2010 an Airbus A300B4-600ST "Beluga" brought fuselage parts of the Airbus A400M to Dresden. In a specially built hall on the airport premises, IMA GmbH Dresden and IABG are carrying out fatigue tests on these parts.

A Lufthansa A380 visiting Dresden Airport

On June 2, 2010, an Airbus A380 visited Dresden Airport for the second time . It was the first Lufthansa A380 with the registration D-AIMA. Coming from Vienna, it landed around 2 p.m. and flew on to Linz about 45 minutes later.

Dresden Airport has been a repair base for the Airbus A380 since May 2013 . In 2013 and 2014, hairline cracks on the wings of EADS Elbe Flugzeugwerke GmbH were repaired on 9 Emirates aircraft and in 2014 on three Air France aircraft. For this purpose, an extension was attached to a hall of the airport so that the Airbus A380 fits completely into it.

See also

literature

  • Flughafen Dresden GmbH (publisher): 60 years of the airport. Chronicle of Dresden Airport. Dresden 1995.
  • Flughafen Dresden GmbH (Ed.): Airport Dresden. The past and present of Dresden aviation. Sandstone publishing house. Dresden 2000.
  • Walter and Johannes Krüger: The Dresden Air War School. In: Die Baugilde 21, pp. 697–716.
  • Franz Spur: Dresdner Fliegerschmiede 1935–1945. History of the Air War School 1 Dresden in Klotzsche. Publishing group Saxon military history. Dresden 2004. ISBN 3-9809520-1-0 .
  • Franz Spur: Military transport plane Dessau-Dresden. A contribution to the 35-year history of the GDR transport aviation. , Aerolit publishing house. Diepholz 2002. ISBN 3-935525-08-7 .
  • Manfred Zeidler: Former air war school in Klotzsche as a historical place and architectural relic of the history of Dresden during the Nazi era . In: archaeologie aktuell 5 - in the Free State of Saxony, 1997.

Web links

Commons : Dresden Airport  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b Leipzig / Halle Airport: Traffic figures 2019: LEJ with a freight record and more passengers, DRS after Germania-Aus in the red (accessed on January 26, 2020)
  2. ADV monthly statistics. Retrieved November 2, 2019 .
  3. Henry L. deZeng IV: Air Force Airfields 1935-45 Germany (1937 Borders) , pp 140-142 , accessed on September 13, 2014.
  4. a b Sächsische Zeitung , regional edition Pirna from 5./6. January 2008, p. 23
  5. Uwe Blümel: The Fluchhafen! Dresden Airport is increasingly being sidelined. In: Tag24.de . February 10, 2019, accessed August 14, 2019 .
  6. Ban on night flights at Dresden Airport from October 2008. Dresden Regional Office , November 30, 2007, accessed on August 14, 2019 .
  7. Airports in central Germany ensure employment growth even in times of crisis ( memento of March 17, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), press release (5/2010) by Flughafen Dresden GmbH, January 27, 2010.
  8. Lars Radau: Dresden Airport now remote-controlled? In: Saxon newspaper . October 24, 2013 ( online [accessed November 15, 2013]).
  9. bundesanzeiger.de
  10. Shareholder of Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG and its subsidiaries. Mitteldeutsche Airport Holding, accessed on August 14, 2019 .
  11. Dresden International Airport and PortGround with new management. www.dresden-airport.de/, October 23, 2013, archived from the original on November 15, 2013 ; Retrieved November 15, 2013 .
  12. Key data, traffic statistics at Dresden Airport. dresden-airport.de, August 12, 2019, accessed on August 12, 2019 .
  13. Traffic development at Leipzig / Halle and Dresden airports in 2016. Mitteldeutschen Flughafen AG, January 20, 2017, accessed on January 21, 2017 .
  14. ADV monthly statistics. adv, accessed February 11, 2017 .
  15. Traffic development at Leipzig / Halle and Dresden airports in 2017: growth in passenger traffic - cargo throughput in Leipzig / Halle continues to increase significantly. Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG, January 19, 2018, accessed on February 4, 2018 .
  16. Traffic development at Leipzig / Halle and Dresden Airports in 2018: growth in passenger traffic - increase in freight in Leipzig / Halle. Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG, January 24, 2019, accessed on January 24, 2019 .
  17. ^ A b Publication - Transport & Traffic - Air traffic at major airports - Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). Retrieved on March 28, 2019 (German).
  18. Reference: Airbus A380-800 Full Scale Fatigue Test ( Memento from September 20, 2014 in the web archive archive.today ), IMA Materialforschung und Verwaltung GmbH.
  19. First parts for A400M test delivered in Dresden. In: Leipziger Volkszeitung . January 5, 2010, accessed August 14, 2019 .
  20. Elbe Flugzeugwerke is repairing three Air France A380s , report on airliners.de from November 24, 2014, accessed on January 20, 2016.
  21. A380 is being repaired in Dresden ( Memento from May 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ).