"A multitalented teenager with excellent future prospects" | Press Release

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Press Release

Issued by AeroGround Flughafen München.

May 14, 2007

"A multitalented teenager with excellent future prospects"

On May 17th of this year Munich Airport will celebrate its 15th anniversary. It has been a decade and a half since FMG, the airport's operating company, reaped worldwide plaudits for the logistical masterminding of its overnight move to the new location. In that time it has moved up to claim a place alongside Europe's leading air transportation hubs. In the lead-up to the 15th birthday celebration, Dr. Michael Kerkloh, the CEO of FMG, called Munich Airport "a multitalented teenager with excellent future prospects." He added, "With its unrivalled success story, Munich Airport has set new standards for foresight in infrastructure policy."

Thanks to growth rates well above the industry average, Munich Airport soared from 51st in 1992 to 31st place in 2006 in the rankings of the world's busiest passenger airports. During the same period it also moved up from 14th to 7th place in the European airport rankings and from 3rd to 2nd among German airports.

Since the day it opened, Munich Airport has counted a total of approximately 316 million passengers and 4.6 million take-offs and landings. Compared with the first operating year (May 17, 1992 – May 16, 1993), when 12.4 million passengers were handled, the passenger volume in the current operating year (May 17, 2006 – May 16, 2007) has almost tripled to nearly 32 million. During the same period, the airfreight tonnage handled at the airport has quadrupled from just under 100,000 to more than 400,000 metric tons.

The steady increase in passenger volume has been flanked by continual growth in the workforce. The first workplace survey conducted at the new location in 1993 revealed that approximately 15,000 people were employed at Munich Airport. By the summer of 2006 this figure had already increased to 27,400.

According to current traffic forecasts, the dynamic traffic development at Munich Airport will continue during the coming years. By 2020, the annual passenger volume is expected to soar to nearly 56 million. To ensure that it can handle future traffic growth, Munich Airport is currently planning to build a third runway that will boost the current capacity of 90 schedulable take-offs and landings to 120: "This expansion project and the realization of the Transrapid maglev rail line from Munich's main railway station to our airport will be a decisive contribution to the continuation of our airport's success story on behalf of the state of Bavaria, its economy and the people living here," says Kerkloh.