Memmingen Airport, also known as Allgäu Airport Memmingen, is an international airport in the town of Memmingerberg near Memmingen, the third-largest city in the Swabia region of Bavaria. It is the smallest of the three commercial airports in the state after Munich Airport and Nuremberg Airport and has the highest altitude of any commercial airport in Germany. It is operated by Flughafen Memmingen GmbH, a limited partnership of mostly local, medium-sized companies and public shares. Located about from the centre of Memmingen and from the city centre of Munich, it serves Memmingen and Allgäu. It also provides a low-cost alternative to Munich Airport and therefore is sometimes referred to as Memmingen/Munich-West Airport. It features flights to European leisure and some metropolitan destinations and handled over 1,7 million passengers in 2019.
History
Early years
A military airfield was built at Memmingerberg in 1935. It was used during World War II. After being rebuilt, it was used for the US Air Force training flights from 1956. From 1959 to 2003, it was the home base of German Air Force fighterbomber wing 34. The airport was certified as a regional commercial airport on 20 July 2004 and commenced operation on 5 August 2004, but there were no scheduled or regular chartered flights. Scheduled flights to the 2005 Hanover Fair were cancelled due to lack of demand. In June 2005, the district of Oberallgäu granted initial finance of €480,000. A further sum of €200,000 was granted by the city of Memmingen after a popular vote on 25 September 2005. In 2006, scheduled flights to Dortmund and Rostock were planned but cancelled because the carrier became insolvent. In autumn 2006, Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter offered chartered flights to Dortmund for two months, during which only 100 passengers were carried. In March 2007, a subsidy of €7,500,000 promised by the Bavarian government was approved by the European Commission. Until 25 September 2008 it was known as Allgäu Airport/Memmingen. On 28 June 2007, TUIfly started offering domestic flights to Berlin, Hamburg, and Cologne, and also flights to holiday destinations such as Palma de Mallorca, Heraklion, Naples, Rome, Venice, and Antalya. In March 2009, Ryanair announced seven new routes serving Memmingen starting May 2009.
Developments since 2010
Ryanair have continued to announce new routes and from May 2010 Ryanair operated 14 routes to and from Memmingen. Wizz Air also started serving Memmingen and has established eight routes since then. On 24 October 2013, Ryanair announced a new seasonal service to Shannon, while Palermo was added as a destination from the summer season of 2015. For the 2015 summer schedule, Wizz Air announced that it would expand its commitment and serve the cities of Tuzla in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Bulgarian city of Sofia and the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. On 5 June 2014, the airport welcomed its five-millionth passenger. In December 2014, InterSky announced that it would be taking over the domestic flights from Memmingen to Berlin and Hamburg by 1 March 2015, as Germanwings had announced that it would cease the same services just a few days earlier. In earlier years, these routes had already been unsuccessfully served by TUIfly, Air Berlin, and Avanti Air. In May 2015, InterSky announced that it would have a presence at Memmingen Airport by October 2015 consisting of one aircraft, adding a new route to Cologne and increasing frequencies on the already existing services to Berlin and Hamburg. Later, that plan was changed as a triangular route of Friedrichshafen - Memmingen - Cologne/Bonn will be established instead of basing an aircraft in Memmingen. However, on 6 November 2015, InterSky ceased all operations due to financial difficulties, leaving Memmingen again without any domestic connections. Ryanair announced in March 2017 plans to establish its second Bavarian base in Memmingen from October 2017 consisting of one aircraft and seven additional routes. Since 31 March 2019, another Ryanair aircraft has been stationed in Memmingen and the workforce has been increased to 70 employees. In December 2017, Memmingen Airport received its safety certification by the European Aviation Safety Agency. 2017 has been announced the first business year in which the airport achieved a profit at year end since the start of public services. In August 2018, the airport announced the schedule for its planned expansion which will take place from September 2018 until 2020. While the runway will be widened and its guidance system and lightning upgraded, the luggage facilities will see an expansion. On 6 December 2018, the 10 millionth passenger was welcomed. In early 2019 the planned expansion works began to widen the runway and expand the handling facilities with the airport being closed for several weeks in September of the same year. The widened and refurbished runway has been inaugurated on 1 October 2019.
Infrastructure
Terminal
Memmingen Airport has one passenger terminal building equipped with 10 check-in counters and 7 departure gates used for Schengen flights on the ground floor and non-Schengen flights on the upper floor. The building has no jet bridges, therefore walk-boarding and bus-boarding is used. There is also a duty-free shop, as well as some restaurants and car-hire facilities at the airport. The terminal has a capacity of two million passengers per year.
Runway and apron
Memmingen Airport has an ILSCategory 1 for runway 24 and is equipped with NDB/DME and GPS RNAV. Originally, the runway was only wide with accordingly narrow taxiways due to its former use as a facility for jet fighter aircraft. However, an expansion to the international standard had been granted in 2016 and was completed in September 2019. Simultaeously, the runway was equipped with new LED lightning while an upgrade of the ILS for direction 06 is under preparation. Two aprons provide parking spaces for six mid-sized aircraft such as the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 at a time as well as some smaller business jets. There is an additional smaller apron for general aviation aircraft located on the other side of the runway.
Airlines and destinations
The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights at Memmingen Airport:
Statistics
2008
462,000
2009
810,000
2010
911,609
2011
764,782
2012
869,937
2013
838,971
2014
750,000
2015
883,490
2016
996,714
2017
1,179,875
2018
1,492,553
2019
1,722,764
Ground transportation
Road
The airport is located close to the A96 motorway and its intersection with the A7 motorway. The A96 leads directly to Munich, Lake Constance, and Switzerland, while the A7 leads to Ulm, Northern Germany, and Austria. Taxis as well as several car-hire companies are available at counters in the terminal building.
Coach
There are coach services from Memmingen Airport directly to Munich, the Bavarian Alps, other towns in Bavaria, and Eastern Germany.
Bus
Local bus lines 2 and 810/811 connect the airport within a 15-minute drive with Memmingen town centre, including Memmingen railway station, from where frequent Deutsche Bahn regional services depart for Munich and Augsburg, as well as some long-distance Swiss Federal Railways services to Bregenz and Zürich.
