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The construction of a third runway at Munich airport is a long way off: in view of the massive drop in air traffic due to the Corona crisis, Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) announced on Wednesday that plans to another five years and therefore until at least 2028 are on hold. laic. “During my tenure, the third track will not arrive,” Söder said, according to participants, in a speech at the CSU parliamentary group meeting in Munich; he points to two legislative terms as head of government.
Söder said the next budget would have to provide money for airports and trade shows. The airport simply no longer has the money for a third runway.
The construction of the third runway, planned for 15 years, has always been highly controversial, also among Bavarian government partners. In their coalition agreement in fall 2018, the CSU and Free Voters agreed not to pursue the plans until the end of the current legislative term in 2023. Söder himself had stated before the 2018 state elections that he wanted the third track, but without agitation, but only when necessary. At the time, he argued that the track should be ready in 2025; since from then on it would be necessary according to all forecasts.
In fact, Munich airport set passenger records before the Corona crisis. And the number of takeoffs and landings, determining factors for the use of the airport, increased in the last year and gradually approached the previous record year of 2008 with 432,000 takeoffs and landings. The crisis in the crown, however, has greatly obscured all future forecasts for the industry. Air traffic has plummeted, plunging airlines and airports into an unprecedented crisis. Currently, many companies can only survive with financial help from the government. And there is currently no rapid recovery in sight.
It also emerged on Wednesday that the top of the Lufthansa group did not expect to find its way back to its former size after the Corona crisis. In the last two decades, Lufthansa has expanded Munich Airport to its second largest hub after Frankfurt. For them, in turn, it is by far the most important airline. Lufthansa and the airport jointly operate Terminal 2 at Erdinger Moos.
There have been building permits for a third runway at Munich Airport for years. In fact, the project has been on hold since 2012. At that time, the citizens of Munich rejected the project in a referendum. The state capital is one of the three shareholders of the airport, along with the federal government and Bavaria, and the runway cannot be built without their consent. However, there are ways around the city, for example by transforming Flughafen-GmbH into a joint stock company, which the CSU and Free Voters have also excluded in their coalition agreement.
