Absurdity”: environmentalists show “: Many regional airports are superfluous

Show the “absurdity”
Environmentalists: Many regional airports are superfluous

Environmentalists have criticised the support of small airports with control resources as a climate-damaging waste of money. The regional airports showed “the absurdity of flying”, said the head of the environmental organization BUND, Olaf Bandt, on Wednesday.

Only 3 of the 14 examined locations had a traffic policy Use the connection of their Region to the international air traffic. In the rest of the Connections offered were, almost without exception, to holiday flights. The FEDERAL government and the Forum Ecological-Social market economy (GBG) therefore demanded the immediate closure of half of the 14 regional airports, which they had taken in a joint study under the microscope.

Were investigated in 14 selected regional Airports, in General, the smaller of the 24 main airports in Germany. The study deals with the economic efficiency, the importance for the transport links and the development of the passenger numbers of airports with between 200,000 and three million passengers in the year.

Were a rating of the airports Bremen, Dresden, Dortmund, Erfurt-Weimar, Frankfurt-Hahn, Friedrichshafen, Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden, Kassel-Calden airport, Memmingen, Münster/Osnabrück Niederrhein-Weeze, Paderborn/Lippstadt, Rostock, and Saarbrücken.

Bremen and Memmingen cut off with a “yellow card” and two positive reviews in the three categories on the best. A positive rating and, thus, an “orange card” went to Dresden, Dortmund, Friedrichshafen, Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden and Münster/Osnabrück.

Immediately closed those regional airports, which received only negative reviews, and thus a “red card”: Erfurt-Weimar, Frankfurt-Hahn, Kassel-Calden, Niederrhein-Weeze, Paderborn/Lippstadt, Rostock-Laage, Saarbrücken should be from the point of view of the environmentalists. The basis of the annual reports from 2014 to 2018 were reported.

The airport Association ADV rejected the claims and demanded cost reductions, in particular, in the case of safety precautions, which would be worn in other EU countries by the state. The polycentric airport system is a reflection of the Federal structure of Germany with its strong economic centres and Metropolitan regions, said ADV-chief Executive Ralph Beisel. The Association pointed to the importance of airports in freight traffic and as a location factor for companies. The regional economic effects were generally significantly higher than the of the shareholders suffered losses.