Construction work in Frankfurt finished
Ghost pier will not be used for years
2/8/2022 8:38 am
Pier G at Frankfurt Airport comes too early ten years after the last terminal expansion. Passengers will not enter the building for years due to the Corona lull. Until then, the ghost pier should run in so-called “dormant mode”.
Major testing has begun in the brand new Gate G at Frankfurt Airport. The commissioned companies check whether their installations work, all the automatic doors, moving walkways, baggage handling systems, ventilation and heating systems that a modern airport building needs. “The pier is structurally complete,” says a spokesman for the airport operator Fraport, who intends to take over the building in a few weeks – subject to official approvals, especially for fire protection.
But the first section of the new Frankfurt Terminal 3 comes at the wrong time. 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 is about four years too early. The Corona crisis has also severely slowed down the largest German airport on its seemingly unstoppable growth course.
13 gates, 22 check-in counters and 9 building positions
Nobody currently needs an additional capacity of around 5 million passengers when last year there were around 45 million fewer guests than in the record year 2019. The third passenger terminal in the south of the site has been planned for a long time, should cost 4 billion euros and probably is 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, with many negative consequences for customers.
Ten years after the last terminal expansion, the new pier at Frankfurt Airport is almost complete.
(Photo: picture alliance/dpa/Fraport AG)
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 9 building positions for the jets, up to five million guests a year can theoretically be processed there. She would not have expected too much comfort at first, because “Pier G” is not connected to the baggage system or to the airport’s own elevated passenger railway for the time being. For the time being, direct arrival is only possible by car or bus, since there is also no S-Bahn station.
So far, this has hardly bothered price-conscious customers, but the pandemic has also slowed down 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.
Ghost Pier is said to run in “dormant mode”.
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. But it doesn’t have to last forever, because on their ambitious growth path, the Irish cannot permanently do without the millions of visitors from the economically strong Rhine-Main area. And the poker about the future conditions at Pier G has long since begun. He rates this as a “very efficient terminal building,” said Ryanair manager Andreas Gruber just a few days after the announcement of the withdrawal. And indicated that a return of Ryanair to Frankfurt is only a question of price.
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 staff. 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.