Hamburg Airport


Hamburg Airport, known in German as Flughafen Hamburg, is a major international airport in Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany. Since November 2016 the official name has become Hamburg Airport Helmut Schmidt, after the former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt. It is located north of the city centre in the Fuhlsbüttel quarter and serves as a hub for Eurowings and focus cities for Condor, Ryanair, and TUI fly Deutschland.
Hamburg Airport is the fifth-busiest of Germany's commercial airports measured by the number of passengers and counted 17,231,687 passengers and 156,388 aircraft movements in 2018. It is named after former senator of Hamburg and chancellor of Germany, Helmut Schmidt. As of July 2017, it featured flights to more than 130 mostly European metropolitan and leisure destinations as well as three long-haul routes to Dubai, Tabriz and Tehran. The airport is equipped to handle wide-bodied aircraft including the Airbus A380.
Hamburg's other airport, Hamburg Finkenwerder Airport, is not open to commercial traffic. This is where the Airbus factory site is located.

History

Early years

The airport was opened in January 1911 from private funding by the Hamburger Luftschiffhallen GmbH , making it the oldest airport in the world to still be in operation and the second oldest airport in the country after Tempelhof Airport. The original site comprised 45 hectares, and during its early days was primarily used for airship flights. In 1913 the site was expanded to 60 hectares, the northern part being used for airship operations while the southeast area was used for fixed-wing aircraft.
During the First World War, the airship hangar was used extensively by the German military, until it was destroyed by fire in 1916.
During the British occupation, beginning in 1945, the airport was given its current name, Hamburg Airport. It was used extensively during the Berlin Airlift in 1948 as a staging area, as the northern air corridor went between Hamburg and West Berlin.
When Lufthansa launched passenger operations in 1955, Hamburg was used as a hub until Frankfurt Airport took over due to growth constraints posed by the location in the city. Lufthansa Technik still maintains a large presence at the airport due to the early activities of the airline at the airport.
In the 1960s discussions began with the aim of moving the airport to Heidmoor near Kaltenkirchen. Among the reasons cited were limited expansion possibilities, capacity constraints due to crossing runways, and noise. Lufthansa had introduced the Boeing 707 in 1960, which made more noise than previous piston-engined aircraft. The plans were dropped, owing to bad experiences in other cities where airports had been moved far from city centres, and to Lufthansa's move to Frankfurt.

Development since the 1990s

In the early 1990s, the airport began an extensive modernisation process. The plan, called HAM21, included a new 500m pier extension, a new terminal, and the Airport Plaza between Terminals 1 and 2, which includes a consolidated security area. The airport's shareholders are the City of Hamburg and AviAlliance.
The Radisson Blu Hotel Hamburg Airport was added in 2009, combined with new roadside access and a station and connection to the city's rapid transit system.
In January 2016, TUIfly announced it was leaving Hamburg Airport entirely due to increasing competition from low-cost carriers. While the summer seasonal routes would not resume, all remaining destinations were cancelled by March 2016. A few weeks later, it was officially announced that the airport was to be named after Helmut Schmidt, a former Senator of Hamburg and chancellor of West Germany. On 10 November 2016, the airport was renamed Hamburg Airport Helmut Schmidt.
In October 2016, Air Berlin announced the closure of its maintenance facilities at the airport, due to cost-cutting and restructuring measures.
In June 2017, easyjet announced it would close its base at Hamburg by March 2018 as part of a refocus on other base airports. While over half of the former services were cut, several routes remained in place as they are served from other easyJet bases. In October 2018, United Airlines announced the end of its seasonal service to Newark, leaving the airport with only three long-haul routes, all to the Middle East and no direct services to North America. The route was inaugurated by Continental Airlines back in 2005 and switched from yearround to seasonal in 2017 Also in October 2018 Emirates switched one of the two daily flights from Dubai to A380-service. This was the first ever commercial A380-service to Hamburg. The second daily flight remains operated by Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.

Facilities

Hamburg Airport originally covered. Since then, the site has grown more than tenfold to. The main apron covers and features 54 parking positions; the passenger terminals provide 17 jet bridges. As of July 2016, the airport had only three routes served with Wide-body aircraft; however, during that year three gates were upgraded with double-jet bridges to provide faster boarding and de-boarding for large planes like the Airbus A380. The runways, taxiways and aprons can accommodate large aircraft, including the Airbus A380. Emirates plans to replace one Boeing 777 with A380 aircraft on the route. On 28 May 2018, Emirates announced it would commence services from Dubai International Airport to Hamburg with the A380.

Terminals

Hamburg has two terminals, Terminal 1 and Terminal 2, connected by the Airport Plaza and the baggage claim area that extends through the lower levels of all three buildings. These three buildings were designed by Gerkan, Marg and Partners. Both terminals have a high, curved ceiling designed to emulate the shape of a wing. In all buildings level 1 is the departure level, while level 0 is arrivals. Hamburg Airport offers 12 baggage claim belts on the arrivals level.
The Airport Plaza hosts the central security check as well as shops, restaurants, lounges and other service facilities. It houses the S-Bahn station and was completed in December 2008.

Terminal 1

Terminal 1 was completed in 2005 and is highly similar to Terminal 2 in terms of design and size. It has numerous energy and water saving features like rain water collection for use in restrooms and a ThermoLabyrinth, which uses ground temperature to help regulate the building's temperature and reduce loads on the air conditioning systems. Terminal 1 houses most of the airlines including those from the Oneworld and SkyTeam alliances.

Terminal 2

Terminal 2 was completed in 1993. It houses Eurowings and Lufthansa with its Star Alliance partners, amongst others.

Airlines and destinations

The following airlines offer regular scheduled and charter flights at Hamburg Airport:

Statistics

Passengers and movements

Busiest routes

RankDestinationPassengersOperating airlines
1 Munich1,738,973Eurowings, Lufthansa
2 Frankfurt1,394,973Lufthansa
3 Stuttgart690,451Eurowings
4 Düsseldorf607,141Eurowings
5 Cologne/Bonn486,034Eurowings

RankDestinationPassengersOperating airlines
1 Palma de Mallorca982,336Condor Flugdienst, Eurowings, Ryanair, TUI fly Deutschland
2 Zurich707,970Eurowings, Swiss International Air Lines
3 Vienna590,638Austrian Airlines, Eurowings
4 London-Heathrow580,721British Airways, Eurowings
5 Paris-Charles de Gaulle483,763Air France, Eurowings

RankDestinationPassengersOperating Airlines
1 Dubai-International430,290Emirates
2 Antalya295,178Condor Flugdienst, Corendon Airlines, Freebird Airlines, SunExpress, Tailwind Airlines, Turkish Airlines
3 Istanbul-Sabiha Gökcen114,079Pegasus Airlines, Turkish Airlines
4 Hurghada76,928Condor Flugdienst, FlyEgypt
5 Izmir60,804SunExpress, Turkish Airlines

Ground transportation

Train

The airport is around north of Hamburg city centre and south of Norderstedt in the borough of Fuhlsbüttel. S-Bahn service S1, operated by Deutsche Bahn operates every ten minutes between the airport, Ohlsdorf, Wandsbek, Hamburg central station, Altona, Blankenese and Wedel. It is part of the HVV fare organisation offering tickets for all modes of public transportation in Hamburg. Going towards the airport, S1 trains split at Ohlsdorf station, with one portion going to the airport and the other going to Poppenbüttel.

Car

By road, the airport can be reached from Federal Motorway A7 using the state motorway B433, which is the third ring road. Motorists from the east of the city must drive through Hamburg.

Bus

The airport is also linked by some local bus routes to nearby areas as well as regular coach services to the cities of Kiel and Neumünster.

Trivia