Hamburg Airport - Facts & figures and the Chamber's view

Hamburg Airport was founded in 1911 and is thus the oldest airport in Germany.

Hamburg Airport, situated conveniently close to the city, is the fifth-largest airport in Germany. In 2016, it handled over 16 million passengers and over 160,000 flight movements. It is the oldest airport in the country still to be located on its original site.Looking to the future, the airport is set to expand further, and estimates predict a sustained upward trend in passenger numbers.

There are around 70 airlines operating about 120 national and international destinations from this airport. Of the domestic flight routes, the top destinations are the German aviation hubs at Munich and Frankfurt, with around 1.8 and 1.4 million passengers respectively. The direct flight to Dubai connects Hamburg to one of the biggest intercontinental hubs, thus providing good transfer connections to Africa, India, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. There are other intercontinental connections to Teheran and in the Summer flight plan to New York.

The Flughafen Hamburg GmbH company directly employs around 1,900 staff. If one adds the approximately 5,600 employees with the airlines, security services etc. and the 7,500 staff at the Lufthansa hangar facility, the airport provides jobs for a total of around 15,000 people. That makes it one of the biggest employers in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein.

A passenger survey in 2006 revealed that close on three in ten passengers live in Schleswig-Holstein. This means that the airport is used to practically the same level by passengers from Hamburg and from Schleswig-Holstein. Of those passengers flying to and from Hamburg over one third are business passengers. This makes Hamburg Airport the most important North German gateway, supporting the wider economic development opportunities for the entire metropolitan region.

Until mid-2000, Hamburg Airport was wholly state-owned; 75% of its shares were held by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, and the remaining 26% was held by the Federal government.In July 2000, 36% of the shares, including all those held by the Federal government, were sold for DM 540 million to a private consortium comprising Hochtief AirPort and Air Rianta International.In addition, the consortium holds the option for the further purchase of up to 13% of the shares by 2007. At the time of writing in 2017, the ownership rights in Flughafen Hamburg GmbH are held 51% by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and 49% by AviAlliance GmbH.

For more information, please visit Hamburg Airport.

Our Chamber of Commerce considers a high-performance airport which is situated in a transport-favourable location as an essential precondition for the economic prosperity of the Hamburg metropolitan region. All measures which service the maintenance and further development of the performance capability of Hamburg Airport are therefore supported by our Chamber of Commerce. In addition to collaborating on practical projects, our Chamber of Commerce therefore has a representation on a number of committees. Mention should be made of the Supervisory Board (Aufsichtsrat) of Flughafen Hamburg GmbH (FHG), the Administrative Board (Verwaltungsrat) of the Working Group of German Transport Airports (ADV) and the aviation working group (Arbeitsgruppe Luftverkehr) of the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK).

The location of Hamburg Airport, on the outskirts of the city, is essential to ease of accessibility both from the business centres of the city centre and from the other economic centres across the entire metropolitan region. Full exploitation of the advantages of this location calls for a high-performance transport infrastructure. Our Chamber of Commerce has therefore played a decisive part in driving forward the S-Bahn link to the airport.

In the immediate vicinity of the airport, there is a conflict of use between the noise-emitting airport and housing construction. To limit this conflict of interests, the Hamburg Senate took a decision on 23 September 1996 on guidelines for housing planning in the area around the airport - even though these have only been partially implemented. Given the importance of Hamburg Airport to the wider economy, our Chamber of Commerce is calling for consistent implementation of these guidelines. To achieve a balance of interests between the Hamburg economy and local residents in the area around the airport, our Chamber of Commerce is also a participant in the flight noise protection commission [Fluglärmschutzkommission (FLSK)] and the alliance for flight noise protection.

The possibility of problem-free dispatch and receipt of air cargo is a key location factor either for companies which produce time-sensitive and high-quality goods and need to transport these quickly to their sales markets, or for companies which are reliant on corresponding preliminary products for the production of other goods. Our Chamber of Commerce is therefore committed to maintaining and further developing a high-performing cargo area. The new Hamburg Airport Carpo Center, opened in July 2016, has a capacity of 150.000 tonnes and can give new impulses in the develpoment of air cargo.