Munich Airport!
Panoramic view of Munich Airport
Welcome back to Brooke In The Air! Happy holidays everyone, everywhere, no matter what you celebrate! Today in our whirlwind of airport tours we’ll be examining Munich International Airport in beautiful Munich, Germany!
I’ll be visiting Munich in early February and I’m looking forward to it! 40 days from now to be precise!
Let’s dive in, shall we?
INTRODUCTION
Munich Airport (German: Flughafen München "Franz Josef Strauß“) (IATA: MUC, ICAO: EDDM) is an international airport serving Munich and Bavaria. It is the second-busiest airport in Germany in terms of passenger traffic after Frankfurt Airport, and the tenth-busiest airport in Europe, handling 47.9 million passengers in 2019. It is the world's 15th-busiest airport in terms of international passenger traffic,and was the 38th-busiest airport worldwide in 2018. It serves as hub for Lufthansa including its subsidiaries Lufthansa CityLine, Lufthansa City Airlines, Air Dolomiti and Eurowings as well as a base for Condor and TUI fly Deutschland.
The airport is located 28.5 km (17.7 mi) northeast of Munich, near the town of Freising. It is named after former Bavarian minister-president Franz Josef Strauss. It has two passenger terminals with an additional midfield terminal, two runways as well as extensive cargo and maintenance facilities and is fully equipped to handle wide-body aircraft including the massive Airbus A380.
Munich's previous airport, Munich-Riem Airport, was operational from 1939 to 1992.
Initial plans for an expansion of the airport date back to the year 1954. With rising passenger numbers and a growing number of inhabitants in its proximity, plans were made to completely move the airport to another site. The Bavarian government took the decision to build a new airport in the area called "Erdinger Moos" on 5 August 1969. When construction started on 3 November 1980, the small village of Franzheim disappeared and its approximately 400 inhabitants were resettled. The airport is located on the territory of four different municipalities: Oberding (location of the terminals; district of Erding), Hallbergmoos, Freising, and Marzling in the district of Freising.
The new Munich Airport commenced operations on 17 May 1992, and all flights to and from Munich were moved to the new site overnight. Munich-Riem closed for good on 16th of May, 1992, shortly before midnight.
The airport is named after Franz Josef Strauss, who played a prominent, albeit sometimes controversial, role in West German (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) politics from the 1950s until his death in 1988. Amongst other positions, Strauss was a long-time Minister-President (Governor) of the state of Bavaria.
Strauss, a private pilot himself, initiated the new airport project and was particularly interested in attracting the aviation industry south to Bavaria. He is regarded as one of the fathers of the Airbus project and served as initial chairman of the Airbus supervisory board.
OPERATIONS
Terminal 1 at Munich Airport
Flughafen München GmbH, which owns and operates Munich Airport, is a limited liability company consisting of three shareholders: the State of Bavaria (51%), the Federal Republic of Germany (26%) and the City of Munich (23%). The logo of Munich Airport consists of the letter "M" with the slogan "Living ideas – Connecting lives". Munich Airport is usually referred to as "Flughafen München" or simply "MUC", its IATA code.
During construction, the airport was referred to as "Flughafen München II".
As their home base at Frankfurt Airport suffered from capacity limits back then, Lufthansa established a second hub, offering several short- and long-haul connections through Munich in addition to Frankfurt.
FLIGHT OPS
While Lufthansa serves more European destinations from Munich Airport than from Frankfurt Airport, Frankfurt has many more intercontinental routes.
Between 1995 and 2006, passenger numbers actually doubled from under 15 million per annum to over 30 million, despite the global impact of the 11 September attacks in 2001 and 2002. In 1996, the airport overtook Düsseldorf as Germany's second-busiest airport and currently handles almost twice as many passengers as the country's third-busiest airport.
In June of 2003, construction of Terminal 2 was completed, and it was inaugurated as an exclusive facility for Lufthansa and its Star Alliance partners.
In November of 2013, the airport introduced its first new corporate design since its inauguration. The large letter 'M' remains in a new font type, and a dash has been added which changes between several colors. There are also animated color-changing versions of the 'M'-sign placed throughout the airport area, for example on the main entrance road and on the new Terminal 2 satellite.
More than 40 million passengers passed through the airport in 2015, a record at the time. They have remained constant ever since.
Munich Airport's dynamic growth continued in 2018 with new traffic records and an all-time high of 46.2 million passengers. The airport also saw a strong surge in take-offs and landings, with 413,000 movements, an increase of 2.2% in 2018. With 266 destinations, Munich Airport increased its global network and is among the leading air transportation hubs in Europe.
In February of 2021, Lufthansa announced it would take over most of Eurowings's (considering Lufthansa owns Eurowings) routes in Munich, with the exception of few domestic services and flights to Palma de Mallorca and Pristina.
TERMINAL LAYOUT
Terminal 1 (center) and Terminal 2 (off-screen)
The airport covers 3,892 acres (1,575 ha) of land area. Most of the airport's facilities are located in the area between the two runways.
The approach road and railway divide the west part into a southern half, which contains cargo and maintenance facilities, and a northern half, which contains mostly administrative buildings and service facilities, a holiday long-term parking lot and the visitors' center. It is followed by the west apron and Terminal 1, then the Munich Airport Center (MAC), Terminal 2 and the east apron. Munich Airport has two passenger terminals, and shuffled 20–25 million people through each terminal in 2014.
TERMINAL 1
Terminal 1 is the older terminal and commenced operation when the airport was opened on 17 May 1992. It has a total capacity of 25 million passengers per year and is subdivided into five modules designated A, B, C, D and E. Modules A through D provide all facilities necessary to handle departures and arrivals, including individual landside driveways and parking, whereas module E is equipped to handle arrivals only.
This design essentially makes each module a self-contained sub-terminal of its own.
Modules A and D are used for flights within the Schengen-area, while modules B and C handle those to destinations outside it.
Hall F is separate, located near Terminal 2, and specializes/handles flights with increased security requirements, i.e. those to Israel. Furthermore, the check-in counters for some flights departing from Terminal 1 are located in the central area Z (Zentralbereich) where most of the shopping and restaurant facilities of this Terminal as well as the airport's suburban railway station are also located.
The 1,081-metre (3,547-foot) pier features 21 jet bridges, two of which have been rebuilt into waiting halls for bus transfers. One gate position has been equipped with three jet bridges to handle the Airbus A380 megaplane which is regularly used by Emirates. There are further 60 aircraft stands on the apron, some of which are equipped with specially designed apron jet bridges (Vorfeldfluggastbrücken), to which passengers are brought by bus. This unique concept allows passengers to board with full protection from the weather but without the high investment required for full satellite terminals connected through a passenger transport system (PTS in English).
Terminal 1 currently handles all airlines that are not members or partners of the Star Alliance with the exception of Turkish Airlines. However, owing to lack of capacity at Terminal 2, Lufthansa's subsidiary Germanwings (now Eurowings) and former affiliate Condor both moved back to Terminal 1 in 2007. Germanwings however moved back to Terminal 2 in late 2015. Some of the major users at Terminal 1 are American Airlines, Condor, Delta Air Lines, easyJet, Eurowings, Emirates, Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways and TUI fly Deutschland, amongst several others.
Expansion
Main airport map showing terminals and expansions
As of December in 2015, a major redesign of Terminal 1 including a capacity increase and an extension of the Central Terminal Building (CTB) to the west for centralized security and shopping facilities was under preparation. In November of 2016, a major €400m extension and refurbishment for Terminal 1 was announced. Terminal areas A and B will be entirely redesigned with the addition of a 320-metre-long (1,050 ft) pier stretching out on the apron. The new facilities will provide capacity for 6 million additional passengers, will be able to handle 12 aircraft including two Airbus A380s at once, and were originally due to open by 2022. However, due to the sharp decrease in passenger traffic in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and a simultaneous sharp cost increase for the new terminal annex, the building's shell was to be finished by 2022 with a new estimated opening of late-2025.
Terminal 2 commenced operation on 29 June 2003. It has a design capacity of 25 million passengers per year and is exclusively used by Lufthansa and all other Star Alliance members serving Munich except Turkish Airlines. Etihad Airways has shifted to Terminal 1 effective from 1 June 2023.
Having been designed as a hub terminal, it is not divided into modules like Terminal 1. Instead, all facilities are arranged around a central Plaza. Owing to security regulations imposed by the European Union, the terminal has been equipped with facilities to handle passengers from countries considered insecure, i.e. not implementing the same regulations. This required the construction of a new level as, unlike other airports, the terminal does not have separate areas for arriving and departing passengers. The new level 06 opened on 15 January 2009.
The pier, which is 980 m (3,220 ft) long, is equipped with 24 jet bridges. As the total number of 75 aircraft stands on the east apron is not always sufficient, Terminal 2 sometimes also uses parking positions on the west apron, to which passengers are carried by airside buses. Terminal 2 is able to handle the Airbus A380 as well, however, prior to the opening of the Terminal 2 satellite building, there were no designated stands or additional jet bridges for it. Lufthansa flies the A380 into the satellite building instead.
Terminal 2 has two main departure levels, 04 and 05 and additional bus gates on the lower level 03. Gates on level 05 (H) are designated non-Schengen gates. Until the new transfer level 06 opened, the northernmost gates were behind an additional security checkpoint for departures to the USA most of the day. The lower level 04 (G) contains the primary Schengen gates. The bus gates on level 03 are also designated G and are also used for Schengen flights. Level 03 is smaller than the main levels and consists of two separate parts which can be reached from two points on level 04. One area of these gates is designated to Air Dolomiti.
The terminal is operated by Terminal-2-Betriebsgesellschaft (German meaning Terminal 2 Operating Company), which is owned by Flughafen München GmbH (60%) and Lufthansa (40%).
This makes Terminal 2 the first terminal in Germany which is co-operated by an airline.
T2 Satellite Expansion
Lufthansa and Air Canada at T2 - Star Alliance wing
Terminal 2 was projected to reach its full capacity of handling 27.5 million passengers a year by 2013. Lufthansa and Star Alliance partners stipulated the expansion of Terminal 2 without constructing the separate facilities for luggage claim, arrival and departure levels, etc. This was to ensure the easy access for the passengers who appreciate the convenience of central plaza for checking in their luggage, going through the security screening, and such as well as transferring from one plane to other within Lufthansa and Star Alliance partner networks inside Terminal 2. After the completion of Terminal 2 in 2003, the preparations for a new satellite terminal already had been made.
The new satellite building is 609 metres (1,998 ft) long with 125,000 square meters (1,345,500 sq ft) of floor space with 52 additional gates and 27 parking positions, 11 of which are able to handle wide-body aircraft, including Airbus A380. The building has separate access facilities for Schengen and Non-Schengen passengers on two main levels (K Level for Schengen and L for Non-Schengen destinations). The J section is for bus transportation between the terminal and aircraft parked at aprons. 44 new passport control stations and 24 security lanes for transfer passengers are installed in the terminal. Five new Lufthansa lounges along with new restaurants and shops are set up throughout the terminal. However, the satellite terminal is airside-only facility: the check-in, luggage claim, departure and arrival passenger meet points are still done at Terminal 2. The passenger transportation between Terminal 2 and Terminal 2 Satellite is served by fully automated people mover by Bombardier Transportation of all thinmgs that operates in the tunnels. The satellite terminal celebrated its one millionth passenger in July 2016, less than three months after its opening.
Project Finances
The project cost is 650 million Euro with Munich Airport contributing 60% and Lufthansa 40% toward the project. The expansion would handle additional 11 million passengers per year. The construction was approved in 2010 and started in 2012. At end of 2015, the construction was completed, and the teams of volunteers performed the trial runs in January 2016 as to identify any potential issues and to streamline the movements between Terminal 2 and Terminal 2 Satellite.
The satellite terminal was inaugurated on 22 April 2016 and commenced its operations on 26 April 2016.
Munich Airport Center
central MAC - Munich Airport Center mall
The Munich Airport Center (MAC) is a shopping, business, and recreation area that connects the terminals. The older Central Area (German: Zentralbereich), which was originally built as part of Terminal 1, hosts a shopping mall and the S-Bahn station. The newer MAC Forum built with Terminal 2 is a large outdoor area with a partly transparent tent-like roof. Next to it is the airport hotel managed by Hilton Hotels & Resorts which was designed by the world-famous architect Helmut Jahn and his landscape architecture firm in 1994.
The Munich Airport Center has a supermarket where one can shop from 5:30 a.m. to midnight every day, including Sundays, as it is exempt from the Bavarian law governing retail hours of operation (Ladenschlussgesetz).
To make shopping in the public areas more attractive for local residents of the airport area, there are special offers where visitors can park up to three hours for free in the P20 parking garage.
Short-term parking can be found east of the central area, where visitors can park for free for a maximum of thirty minutes. During the holiday periods other cheaper options are provided in the P8 parking garage.
RUNWAYS
The airport has two parallel runways and one concrete helipad.
The two concrete runways (08R/26L and 26R/08L) are each 4,000 meters (13,120 ft) long and 60 meters (200 ft) wide.
OTHER FACILITIES
Lufthansa maintains a Flight Operations Center at the airport for crews based here at its secondary hub. In 2014, its subsidiary Lufthansa CityLine relocated their administration offices from Cologne to the grounds of Munich Airport. Additionally, there is a large Lufthansa Technik maintenance facility which can handle up to six Boeing 747s at once.
There are two hotels directly on the airports grounds, the Hilton Munich Airport (which was the Kempinski Hotel Airport Munich until 31 December 2014) near Terminal 2 and a Novotel at the long-term parking area with several more in the nearby villages.
German car manufacturer Audi established a large training facility for its retailers on the grounds of the airport in 2010. Designated areas near the apron are used for drive training.
The now-defunct German airline DBA, originally Deutsche BA, had its head office on the grounds of the airport.
The helicopter operations division of the Bavarian State police is based here
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