Lack of staff, long queues, desperate passengers: things are not going well at Munich Airport. Now the state government is reacting.
As a result of problems with queues, staff shortages and delays at Munich Airport, the Free State of Bavaria is calling for rapid reforms. “The airport will concentrate more on its core business in the future,” said Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) to the “Münchner Merkur”. The Free State is the majority shareholder in Germany’s second largest airport, and Finance Minister Albert Füracker (CSU) heads the supervisory board.
From Söder’s perspective, there is a clear mission: “Reduce delays, check more quickly, process luggage more quickly and, together with the federal police, speed up passport controls.”
There have been repeated difficulties at Munich Airport in the past few weeks and months. At the beginning of October, for example, there were long queues at security checks with extreme waiting times in Terminal 2. Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr recently described Munich as currently the worst airport in Europe. Delays and missing staff are the order of the day.
For Söder, these are untenable conditions that must not be repeated. “The airport is and remains a flagship of Bavaria, one of the most successful in the world,” he said. But recently, annoying things have happened several times – that has to change again. Airport boss Jost Lammers, who had already apologized for the grievances, will have to answer to the CSU parliamentary group in the state parliament on Wednesday.
Söder emphasized in the newspaper that not every problem was caused by the airport company FMG; its partner Lufthansa was also affected. “There was obviously a small relationship crisis between FMG and Lufthansa. In order to fix this, I called a group that drew clear and quick lessons.”
The FMG board will be restructured. “There will be a separate board of directors for the basic business who will take care of these elementary core activities. A further 500 employees will be hired and trained for exactly those areas where there are problems,” said Söder. The security gates would also have to be massively expanded. In the future, it would have to be possible to handle 4,000 instead of the current 3,000 passengers per hour. Lufthansa will also contribute its share.
In view of the debate about a possible third runway that flared up again this week, Söder tried to de-escalate: “The fact remains: no third runway will be built during my term of office.” The government of Upper Bavaria informed the airport in a notice that the building permit for a third runway, which has been in effect since 2015, is valid indefinitely.
An expansion of Munich Airport was at the top of the agenda before the Corona crisis. However, as a result of the pandemic, the number of take-offs and landings plummeted and has not yet reached the pre-crisis level. The number of passengers and the amount of air freight and air mail are also not yet at the level of the record year 2019.
