Lubeck Airport
 

It appears to have filed for insolvency


German Airport Files For Insolvency - Report


April 23, 2014


The small German airport of Luebeck, near Hamburg, has filed for insolvency and a local court has appointed a preliminary administrator, German media reported on Wednesday.
A statement on the airport's website said the 100 people employed had not received their pay for April.
Neither the airport nor the court was available for comment.
Some regional airports in Europe are struggling to find customers and make money as smaller carriers increasingly turn to bigger airports to attract passengers

It's an interesting story. The investor renting the airport from the city of Lubeck disappeared, has not been contactable for months (and not paid the due fees to the city since late last year). He appears to have sold on his company to two people, that no one has ever been able to get hold of. After weeks, the court yesterday installed a new chief executive (actually he had been the airport boss before), who in turn called in the administrators yesterday....

Is Lubeck airport fundamentally capable of standing on its own 2 feet (albeit with a large dose of cost cutting) or is it a lost cause ?
Anyone want to comment on the effect to Ryanair and Wizzair routes ? Have these 2 carriers been paying fees that are reasonable profitable to the airport or have they been loss leaders to the airport ? Is there local political desire to keep the airport running with commercial passenger flights, or are the locals all just as happy with HAM instead ?

Ryanair have scaled back flights over the last few years and are now very seasonal at the airport.

In 2009 flights to ALC, DUB, GRO, HHN, STN, NYO operated alongside the current services to PMI, BGY, PSA and many of these routes have dropped over the last few years.

A few charter carriers have come and gone.

Possibly time to examine seasonal operations if it makes commercial sense to remain open at all.

LBC is a huge loss-making operation, and has always been since Ryanair appeared in 2000. There was a public vote on its future, and BC citizens withdrew their support - it could only remain open through this investor deal, who then disappeared. There is nil political support for this airport, particular at state level.

Anything that does not amount to a closure of LBC in the next few weeks would be a huge surprise.

What's the position at some of the other smaller German airports with passenger ops ?
I'm thinking places like Rostock, Erfurt, Mannheim and Kassel - is there much concern that they could be at real and serious risk ?

Most likely candidates for closure are SCN and/or ZQW. they are currently in talks about both these marginal airports, which are not even half an hour drive away from each other.

KSF is brand new and is the state's government pet/toy... it will accumulate losses for longer. It has considerable business aviation.

MHG very important for business aviation, and just got back its link to Berlin. Too small a runway for LCC ops, but I think they are doing OK.

RLG and ERF are both enjoying strong state government support, as "flagship" airports for their respective states.

Other marginal airports that face issues include FMO, FMM and DTM.

Too many German airports?
 

The problem here is that there are just too many German airports (there are too many in UK too, but the problem in Germany is more acute).

So many former NATO and Warsaw Pact air bases have been reactivated as "airports" some so close to each other that it's almost laughable. Take FKB (Karlsruhe/Baden) and Lahr (Black Forest Airport). One has a reasonable scheduled service base - the other has diddly squat. Surely one has to go.

There's Moenchengladbach - down the road from Düsseldorf, Weeze - nowhere near Düsseldorf and now surely under threat from Ryanair's new policy of flying to primary rather than secondary airports, Kassel, as has been said, Zweibrücken, Altenberg (which Ryanair once called Leipzig), Memmingen serving the Allgau - or Munich if you're Ryanair.

With Germany's much superior autobahn and rail network (superior that is to UK) there's just no need for an airport on every street corner. The market, and therefore the airlines just doesn't need them all. However they are usually the sort of prestige projects much loved by local politicians so it may take a lot to get many of the closed, unless there is pressure from local tax payers.

The airport Germany really needs (BER) might be open in 4 years time - then again it might not!

Don't think MGL fits into your list - it has always been a really busy G.A. airfield with flight schools, a leading MRO provider etc. It ventured into regional schedules when DUS was slot constrained, but as regional flying is sort of dying and DUS has adressed its capacity problems, MGL has reverted back to doing what is has been doing for more than half a century. It cost a few jobs, but that's it. They never built a useless new terminal there or extended the runway.

Different story with all those former mil airfields that were prepped up with tons of taxpayers' money to attract subsidised LCC flights.

Ryanair will stop flying to LBC at the end of the current summer timetable period.

That leaves just 5 weekly Wizzair flights at LBC. The end is neigh? (common sense would hope).

I'm probably being a little pedantic here, but have Ryanair simply said they won't operate during winter 2014/15, or have they gone further to say they won't be flying to Lubeck for summer 2015 either ?

@davidjohnson

Media reports suggest that a lack of planning reliability led to Ryanair's withdrawal. Elsewhere a Ryanair spokesperson is quoted to have said that they would like to test other routes elsewhere, with reference to 3 new routes in Bremen.

I doubt the airport will still to large commercial aircrafts in summer 2015, but they speak of new routes being announced soon. Heard that one before.

Ryanair now cancelled all flights from August onwards from LBC - Ryanair: "the aiport couldn't guarantee that it would be operational".