Fedex quits Frankfurt

U.S. integrator FedEx will cease their Frankfurt flight operations and move traffic to Cologne/Bonn airport instead.
The move will be taken in spring 2010 and include 60 weekly flights.

Reason for doing so is the night flight ban Frankfurt’s airport company Fraport AG wants to impose by 2011 when runway number four will be ready and go into service.

Closing of Rhein/Main from midnight till 5:00 am is strongly backed by the local Hesse politicians.

Governor Herr Koch promised the public to shut down continental Europe’s busiest airport during night times as compromise for building an additional runway that will trigger more traffic and thus assault the vicinity of Rhein/Main.

Now FedEx however pulled the emergency brake by quitting Frankfurt and moving to Cologne.

Fedex announced the building of a new sorting center for 140 million euros that will open up its gates by 2010 and be exclusively utilized by FedEx.

While Cologne/Bonn airport invests 70 million euros the U.S. package giant promised to pay the other half for equipping the facility with a state-of-the-art sorting systems. Garvens further pointed out that he intends to renew the license for night flights beyond 2015 when the current allowance for as many as 36 nightly operations expires.