Leipzig-Halle woos cargo carriers with fly-by-night offer

With express courier giant DHL moving its operations from Cologne-Bonn airport to its newly-created Central European hub at Leipzig-Halle airport and Lufthansa Cargo deciding to move all freighter flights from Cologne-Bonn to Leipzig-Halle from October 28, the East German airport is aggressively courting other airlines by pitching itself as the gateway to Eastern Europe and an airport with no restrictions on night flights.

Anticipating a rise in traffic, Eric Malitzke, managing director of the Leipzig-Halle Airport, told that the airport was taking a number of steps to upgrade its existing infrastructure. On July 5, its second runway, a parallel additional runway, went into operation. Leipzig-Halle invested some USD 380 million in the second runway and has earmarked USD 1.3 billion for other infrastructure projects.

DHL invested over USD 400 million to set up a Central European hub in Leipzig-Halle and convert its hubs at Cologne-Bonn and Brussels airports into gateways after a heated debate with the Belgium government over night flights. DHL wanted to expand its operations at Brussels and consequently increase night flights but abandoned its plans after strong opposition from people living in the area over noise concerns. DHL is still continuing operations at the two airports but has downgraded their status to gateways rather than European hubs.

DHL Express and Lufthansa Cargo have been jointly operating a route network between Europe, Asia and the US since March 2004 with their Aerologic Intercontinental joint venture, touted as the biggest operative partnership between a cargo carrier and an express and courier company.

With DHL’s move to Leipzig-Halle, Lufthansa Cargo has decided to abandon Cologne-Bonn. Lufthansa Cargo spokesman Nils Haupt said: “A substantial part of our network will still run from Cologne-Bonn until October 27, but thereafter flights will be re-routed through Leipzig.”

DHL currently operates 14 planes at Leipzig-Halle, and 30 more are expected to arrive in the coming winter. Leipzig-Halle’s management is pinning its hopes on DHL because it is confident that the express courier’s business will elevate the airport’s status to that of an international airport and attract more carriers.

The Lufthansa Cargo spokesman said there would be three weekly flights from Leipzig through East Midlands to Wilmington-Ohio; five weekly flights from Leipzig via East Midlands to New York; four weekly flights on the Bahrain- Singapore-New Delhi route; and one weekly flight on the Bahrain-Hong Kong-Sharjah-Frankfurt route. Lufthansa and DHL will deploy MD-11 freighter aircraft on these routes. Lufthansa Cargo will also operate three of its own cargo flights from Leipzig to Atlanta (Georgia), Seoul (South Korea) and Istanbul (Turkey).

Both DHL and Lufthansa Cargo emphasized that Cologne-Bonn would continue to be a European base but Lufthansa will transport cargo to and from Cologne only in the bellies of passenger aircraft or by road feeder services. There will be no freighter flights. Consequently, Lufthansa will reduce its staff at Cologne-Bonn.