Münster-Osnabrück airport sees more opportunities on the Dutch market, now that Schiphol is struggling with personnel shortages and is overloaded. The airport, an hour’s drive from Enschede, wants 20 percent of the total number of passengers to come from the Netherlands in a few years.
“I call us, often jokingly, the easternmost airport in the Netherlands,” says marketing director Detlef Döbberthin of the German airport at RTV East.
Münster-Osnabrück Airport currently has 22 destinations, mainly in popular holiday countries. Every year, between 700,000 and 750,000 passengers come here. Before the corona pandemic, there were about a million. The director would like to have that number back up to standard and thinks there is enough potential in the Netherlands. Especially now that Schiphol is struggling with staff shortages at security and baggage porters. From a poll by the Telegraph it turned out this week that many travelers expect chaos and do not dare to fly from Schiphol next summer.
Website in Dutch
Flughafen Münster-Osnabrück, commonly referred to as FMO, welcomes the hesitant Schiphol customers with open arms. With, among other things, extra (holiday) destinations and collaborations with Dutch travel agencies, the German airport wants to encourage residents of Overijssel to take the plane there. There is already one website in Dutch and as far as the director is concerned, the information boards at the airport itself will also be trilingual: German, English and Dutch.
“10 percent of the number of passengers comes from the Netherlands, especially from Overijssel, Drenthe and Gelderland. We believe that we can double that number in five to six years,” says Döbberthin.
Public transport
The director admits that he also has a financial interest in the arrival of many more Dutch people. “We’re not making a profit, that’s right,” said Döbberthin. “Small German airports have the same problems as those in the Netherlands and the corona pandemic has of course not helped. But I also sometimes compare us with public transport: that often makes no profit, while many people do use it.”
With the help of the Dutch, FMO believes it can be profitable within five to six years. That would be the first time in the airport’s 50th anniversary.
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