Orphaned terminals and parked planes – the effects of the corona pandemic are also visible at the airports. Germany’s largest airline, Lufthansa, therefore had to temporarily shut down 700 of its over 760 aircraft. The parked planes are now waiting for better days, especially at the major hubs in Munich and Frankfurt / Main.
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Because there is hardly any space left for the machines on the apron in Frankfurt, one of the runways was quickly converted into an aircraft parking lot. But since it was getting narrower there, the crane airline has now parked two of its Airbuses at Leipzig / Halle Airport.
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Limited parking spaces in Leipzig / Halle
According to airport spokesman Uwe Schuhart, the holiday airlines Condor and SunExpress each parked one of their planes here. So much more long-term parkers could not get there at the largest Central German airport, explains Schuhart MDR SACHSEN-ANHALT. Because there is only space for aircraft parked for longer on the apron directly at the terminal and there are limited parking spaces.
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At least the Condor could still want to use some of these free spaces in the coming days. While most airlines already leave their fleets on the ground, most of Condor’s aircraft are still on the move. The holiday airline is bringing numerous stranded tourists back to Germany on behalf of the Federal Foreign Office.
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Airlines are still looking for parking spaces
But these flights will soon be over, said Condor spokeswoman Magdalena Hauser MDR SACHSEN-ANHALT. Therefore, they are already looking for suitable locations to be able to permanently park their fleet of over 50 aircraft. Because there is hardly any space left in Frankfurt, the Condor hub, the company says that Hauser is now specifically asking for available parking spaces at smaller airports.
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Both the small regional airports in Münster and Kassel but also Leipzig / Halle are under discussion. But there will hardly be more than a handful of planes that will be parked in Leipzig for the coming weeks or even months. The Condor spokeswoman also concedes.
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In theory, significantly more machines can be parked in Leipzig / Halle, because airport spokesman Schuhart says the airport has plenty of space on the taxiways. But these days you need it for the still lively flight operations at the place.
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Freight planes fly despite the Corona crisis
Time-critical goods such as medication or fresh food in particular are often transported by plane. With the cessation of most passenger flights, shipping these goods has become significantly more difficult. Until now, they have mostly been transported in the cargo hold of the passenger aircraft that are now parked. Industry observers therefore expect significantly more cargo flights to take off in the coming months, many of which will probably land in Leipzig / Halle.
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Turnstile towards Asia
With its weekly flights to China, the airport on the border between Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt is already one of the most important logistics locations for the exchange of goods between Europe and China, which handles around 90 percent of the world’s production of mouthguards.
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