- Dortmund Airport
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Dortmund Airport
Flughafen Dortmund
IATA: DTM – ICAO: EDLW Location of airport in North Rhine-Westphalia
DTMSummary Airport type Public Operator Flughafen Dortmund GmbH Location Dortmund, Germany Elevation AMSL 425 ft / 130 m Coordinates 51°31′06″N 007°36′44″E / 51.51833°N 7.61222°ECoordinates: 51°31′06″N 007°36′44″E / 51.51833°N 7.61222°E Runways Direction Length Surface m ft 06/24 2,000 6,560 Asphalt Source: German AIP at EUROCONTROL[1] Dortmund Airport (IATA: DTM, ICAO: EDLW), is the international airport located 10 km (6.2 mi) east[1] of Dortmund, Germany. Its slogan is Näher als man denkt (Closer than you think). Since 2006 it has been carrying the name "Dortmund Airport 21", in reference to the fact that Dortmund's utility company, DSW21, is its major shareholder. The airport has a maximum capacity of around 2.5 million passengers and served approximately 2.3 million passengers in 2008.[2]
Contents
Early history
The airport, originally located in the suburb of Brackel, was first served by commercial flights in 1925 by Aero Lloyd, which operated flights to Paris. By the business year 1927/1928, service had expanded to 2,589 commercial flights annually. During World War II the airport was used as a German air base, and was subsequently used by the British Royal Air Force. Service to Dortmund was not recommenced when German commercial air service was restarted in 1955. In 1960, the civil airfield was relocated to Dortmund-Wickede. The old airport was abandoned and occupied by British forces until the 1990s. Since 2006, part of the original airport area has been used as training grounds by the football club Borussia Dortmund.[citation needed]
Little service
Over the next decades Düsseldorf International Airport and Cologne Bonn Airport were the dominant commercial airports in the Rhine-Ruhr Area. Additionally Hanover/Langenhagen International Airport and Münster/Osnabrück Airport also covered some of the air travel needs of this region. Furthermore, the 257km (160mile) Sauerlandlinie opened in the late 1960s, connecting Dortmund with Frankfurt Airport in under two hours by car.
Commercial service was restored in 1979 with daily flights to Munich by Reise- und Industrieflug GmbH (RFG). Nuremberg and Stuttgart followed shortly afterwards. Following German Reunification in 1990, Dresden, Leipzig, Berlin, and London were added to the flight schedule.
RFG and NFD (Nürnberger Flugdienst) merged in 1990 and Eurowings was formed, which is still based in Dortmund. Construction was started in 1998, and completed in 2000 on a new replacement terminal. This multi-level terminal prepared the airport for its resurgence.
Resurgence
The inside of the terminal (departure level)
From late 2000 onwards, Dortmund Airport has experienced a drastic increase in air traffic. In the 1990s weekly service had been generally restricted to a few turboprop flights to destinations within Germany, as well as occasional charter flights to warm-weather destinations. Since 2000, several new airlines have commenced service to Dortmund, many with mainline jets. Most of the air traffic today is by low cost airlines operating Boeing 737 or Airbus A318/19/20/21 series aircraft to warm-weather destinations and business centers.
The first mass carrier at Dortmund Airport was Air Berlin, which began flights to London, Milan, and Vienna in 2002, supplementing its leisure routes to the Mediterranean. EasyJet made Dortmund a hub in 2004, and Germanwings followed in 2007. Air Berlin eventually ceased most non-leisure routes from Dortmund in 2005, but EasyJet and Germanwings have taken over in this role. However EasyJet had to cancel 5 destinations by the winter timetable of 2008/2009.[citation needed]
Ground transportation
Dortmund Airport is served by an express bus to Dortmund Main Station, a shuttle bus to a nearby rail station (Holzwickede/Dortmund Flughafen), and a bus to Unna, a city to the east.
Future
The airport's master plan consists of the following elements:
- Increasing normal operating hours by one hour at night (to 23:00h), with an additional one hour window in the morning and at night for exceptions
- Lengthening the runway to 2800 metres
- Expanding the terminal and its infrastructure
- Improving motorway connections
- Directly connecting the airport to mass transit
Other facilities
At one time Eurowings had its headquarters, the Dortmund Administrative Center (Verwaltungsstandort Dortmund), at the airport.[3]
Airlines and destinations
Airlines Destinations Air Arabia Egypt Charter: Hurghada Air Berlin Palma de Mallorca
Seasonal: Fuerteventura, Heringsdorf, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, NurembergAir VIA Seasonal: Burgas EasyJet Barcelona, Budapest, London-Luton, Palma de Mallorca, Thessaloniki, Zagreb Freebird Airlines Seasonal: Istanbul-Atatürk Germanwings Munich
Seasonal: Istanbul-Sabiha Gökçen, Palma de Mallorca, SplitPegasus Airlines Antalya Sky Airlines Seasonal: Antalya SunExpress Antalya, Istanbul-Sabiha Gökçen, Izmir Wizz Air Belgrade, Bucharest-Băneasa, Cluj-Napoca, Gdańsk, Katowice, Kiev-Zhuliany, Łódź, Poznań, Sofia, Târgu Mureş, Timişoara, Vilnius, Wrocław Accidents and incidents
- On 3 January 2010, Air Berlin Flight 2450, operated by a Boeing 737-800 (D-ABKF) overran the end of the runway after an aborted take-off at high speed due to an airspeed discrepancy on the two pilots' instruments. There were no injuries among the 171 people on board.[4]
Operations and statistics
Passenger numbers
Number of Passengers [5] Number of Movements [6] Freight
(Tonnes)2001 1,064,149 37,393 257 2002 994,478 33,812 289 2003 1,023,329 29,788 96 2004 1,179,028 25,743 75 2005 1,742,911 30,672 58 2006 2,019,651 32,785 37 2007 2,155,057 32,223 40 2008 2,329,440 29,555 35 2009 1,711,157 24,043 21 2010 1,747,731 24,232 33 Source: ADV German Airports Association[7] References
- ^ a b EAD Basic
- ^ "Historie - Dortmund Airport" (in German). Dortmund Airport GmbH. http://www.dortmund-airport.de/index.php?id=1860&L=. Retrieved 2009-06-02.
- ^ "Dortmund Administrative Center." (German version, Map) Eurowings. Retrieved on 28 January 2011. "Dortmund Administrative Center Eurowings Luftverkehrs AG Flugplatz 21 44319 Dortmund Germany."
- ^ "Incident: Air Berlin B738 at Dortmund on Jan 3rd 2010, rejected takeoff results in runway overrun". Aviation Herald. http://avherald.com/h?article=4252f559&opt=0. Retrieved 3 January 2009.
- ^ Number of Passengers including both domestic and international.
- ^ Number of Movements represents total commercial air transport takeoffs and landings during that year.
- ^ "German Airport Statistics". http://www.adv.aero/statistiken.html.
External links
- Dortmund Airport
- Dortmund Airport (German)
- Current weather for EDLW at NOAA/NWS
- Accident history for DTM at Aviation Safety Network
Categories:- Airports in Germany
- Buildings and structures in North Rhine-Westphalia
- Transport in North Rhine-Westphalia
- Dortmund
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