Dortmund Airport

Dortmund Airport (IATA: DTM, ICAO: EDLW) is a minor international airport located 10 km (6.2 mi) east[1] of Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. It serves the eastern Rhine-Ruhr area, the largest urban agglomeration in Germany, and is mainly used for low-cost and leisure charter flights. In 2019 the airport served 2,719,563 passengers. The nearest major international airport is Düsseldorf Airport approx. 70 km (43 mi) to the southwest.

Dortmund Airport

Flughafen Dortmund
Summary
Airport typePublic
OperatorFlughafen Dortmund GmbH
ServesDortmund and the eastern Rhine-Ruhr area, Germany
Focus city forWizz Air
Elevation AMSL130 m / 427 ft
Coordinates51°31′06″N 007°36′44″E
Websitedortmund-airport.de
Map
DTM
Location of airport in North Rhine-Westphalia
Runways
Direction Length Surface
m ft
06/24 2,000 6,562 Asphalt
Source: German AIP at EUROCONTROL[1]

History

Early years

The airport, originally located in the suburb of Brackel, was first served by commercial flights in 1925 by Aero Lloyd, which operated flights to Paris. By the business year 1927/1928, service had expanded to 2,589 commercial flights annually. During World War II the airport was used as a German air base, and was subsequently used by the British Royal Air Force. Service to Dortmund was not recommenced when German commercial air service was restarted in 1955. In 1960, the civil airfield was relocated to Dortmund-Wickede. The old airport was abandoned and occupied by British forces until the 1990s.

Little service

Over the next decades Düsseldorf Airport and Cologne Bonn Airport were the dominant commercial airports in the Rhine-Ruhr Area. Additionally Hannover Airport also covered some of the air travel needs of this region. Furthermore, the 257-km (160-mile) Sauerlandlinie opened in the late 1960s, connecting Dortmund with Frankfurt Airport in under two hours by car.

Commercial service was restored in 1979 with daily flights to Munich by Reise- und Industrieflug. Nuremberg and Stuttgart followed shortly afterwards. Following German Reunification in 1990, Dresden, Leipzig, Berlin, and London were added to the flight schedule. Reise- und Industrieflug' and Nürnberger Flugdienst merged in 1990 and Eurowings was formed, which is still based in Dortmund.

Construction was started in 1998, and completed in 2000 on a new replacement terminal. This multi-level terminal prepared the airport for its resurgence.

Resurgence

From late 2000 onwards, Dortmund Airport has experienced a drastic increase in air traffic. In the 1990s weekly service had been generally restricted to a few turboprop flights to destinations within Germany, as well as occasional charter flights to warm-weather destinations. Since 2000, several new airlines have commenced service to Dortmund, many with mainline jets. Most of the air traffic today is by low cost airlines operating Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 family series aircraft to warm-weather destinations and business centres.

The first mass carrier at Dortmund Airport was Air Berlin, which began flights to London, Milan, and Vienna in 2002, supplementing its leisure routes to the Mediterranean. easyJet made Dortmund a hub in 2004, and Germanwings followed in 2007. Air Berlin ceased most non-leisure routes from Dortmund in 2005, but easyJet has taken over in this role. However, easyJet cancelled four of five destinations in 2012.[2] To this day the relatively popular London-Luton route is the only one served by easyJet.

Since 2006 it has been carrying the name "Dortmund Airport 21", in reference to the fact that Dortmund's utility company, DSW21, is its major shareholder. The airport's master plan consists of the following elements: Increasing normal operating hours by one hour at night (to 23:00h), with an additional one-hour window in the morning and at night for exceptions, lengthening the runway to 2,800 m (9,200 ft), expanding the terminal and its infrastructure, improving the motorway connections and directly connecting the airport to mass transit.

In October 2014, Air Berlin announced it was leaving Dortmund Airport entirely, cancelling their last remaining summer seasonal route to Palma de Mallorca.[3] The airline had shut down several leisure routes from the airport in 2012.[4]

As with easyJet, other low-cost carriers greatly contributed to the airport's resurgence. Ryanair serves a few routes from the airport, mostly to destinations around the Mediterranean sea and the UK. At one point, Spanish low-cost airline Vueling offered flights to Barcelona, but they have been discontinued despite high demand.

With all that said, WizzAir has been the most significant contributor to the airport's revival. The Hungarian low-cost airline began service in the mid 2000s by operating several routes to Eastern Europe, in large parts due to the Ruhr's significant Slavic community. In June 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Wizzair announced that Dortmund Airport would become its 33rd base, the first in Germany.

Airlines and destinations

The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights at Dortmund Airport:[5]

AirlinesDestinations
easyJet London–Luton
Eurowings Munich, Palma de Mallorca
Seasonal: Split
Ryanair Katowice, Kraków (resumes 25 October 2020), London–Stansted, Palma de Mallorca, Porto, Thessaloniki, Vienna[6]
Seasonal: Málaga
SunExpress Izmir
Wizz Air[7][8] Athens, Bari, Belgrade, Bucharest, Budapest, Catania, Chișinău, Cluj-Napoca, Fuerteventura, Gdańsk, Iași, Katowice, Kharkiv, Kiev–Zhuliany, Kutaisi, Larnaca, Lisbon, Lviv, Marrakesh, Naples, Niš, Ohrid, Olsztyn-Mazury, Palanga, Podgorica, Pristina, Reykjavik–Keflavík, Riga, Sibiu, Skopje, Sofia, Split, Suceava, Târgu Mureș, Thessaloniki, Timișoara, Tirana, Tuzla, Varna, Vienna, Vilnius, Wrocław, Zaporizhia
Seasonal: Alghero, Corfu, Heraklion, Mykonos, Rhodes, Santorini

Statistics
Overview of the departures level
Apron view
PassengersMovementsFreight (in t)
2001 1,064,14937,393257
2002 994,478 33,812 289
2003 1,023,329 29,788 96
2004 1,179,028 25,743 75
2005 1,742,911 30,672 58
2006 2,019,651 32,785 37
2007 2,155,057 32,223 40
2008 2,329,440 29,555 35
2009 1,711,157 24,043 21
2010 1,747,731 24,232 33
2011 1,814,246 26,391 26
2012 1,896,885 22,634 4
2013 1,924,386 23,809 2
2014 1,964,625 22,202 0
2015 1,985,379 23,6160
2016 1,918,845 21,7190
2017 2,000,695 21,9310
2018 2,284,202 25,5230
2019 2,719,566 26,9480
Source: ADV German Airports Association[9]

Ground transportation

To Dortmund and the Ruhr area

Dortmund Airport is served by an express bus to Dortmund main station, a shuttle bus to the nearby railway station Holzwickede/Dortmund Flughafen, a bus to the city's metro line U47, as well as a bus to the city of Unna.

To Düsseldorf

Travellers with destination Düsseldorf main station need to catch the AirportShuttle bus to nearby Holzwickede station. The shuttle bus leaves every 20 minutes in front of the terminal building. From Holzwickede station catch the RE 13 (Maas-Wupper-Express) towards Venlo. The train runs every hour and provides a direct connection to Düsseldorf, the travel time is approx. 60 minutes.

Other facilities

At one time Eurowings had its headquarters, the Dortmund Administrative Center (Verwaltungsstandort Dortmund), at the airport.[10] It has been relocated to Düsseldorf in 2010.

Accidents and incidents
  • On 3 January 2010, Air Berlin Flight 2450, operated by a Boeing 737-800 (D-ABKF) overran the end of the runway after an aborted take-off at high speed due to an airspeed discrepancy on the two pilots' instruments. There were no injuries among the 171 people on board.[11]
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See also

References
  1. "EAD Basic - Error Page". www.ead.eurocontrol.int. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  2. EasyJet streicht vier von fünf Verbindungen am Flughafen Dortmund - Dortmund - derwesten.de
  3. derwesten.de, DerWesten- (15 October 2014). "Air Berlin verlässt Dortmund komplett". www.derwesten.de. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  4. "Air Berlin zieht sich im Frühjahr vom Flughafen Dortmund zurück". airliners.de. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  5. retrieved 15 August 2020
  6. Liu, Jim. "Ryanair / Laudamotion S20 network consolidation as of 18JUN20". Routesonline. Retrieved 19 June 2020.
  7. Liu, Jim. "Wizz Air further expands new routes launch in S20". Routesonline. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  8. "Wizz Air announces a new base in Dortmund". airlinergs.com. 18 June 2020.
  9. "Traffic figures (since 1991)". adv.aero (in German). Retrieved 13 February 2020.
  10. "Dortmund Administrative Center Archived 17 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine." (German version, Map) Eurowings. Retrieved on 28 January 2011. "Dortmund Administrative Center Eurowings Luftverkehrs AG Flugplatz 21 44319 Dortmund Germany."
  11. "Incident: Air Berlin B738 at Dortmund on Jan 3rd 2010, rejected takeoff results in runway overrun". Aviation Herald. Retrieved 3 January 2009.

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