Saarbrücken Airport

Saarbrücken Airport (IATA: SCN, ICAO: EDDR), or Flughafen Saarbrücken or Ensheim Airport in German, is a minor international airport in Saarbrücken, the capital of the German state of Saarland. It features flights to major cities throughout Germany as well as some leisure routes.

Saarbrücken Airport

Flughafen Saarbrücken
Summary
Airport typePublic
ServesSaarbrücken, Germany
Focus city forTUI fly Deutschland
Elevation AMSL1,058 ft / 322 m
Coordinates49°12′52″N 07°06′34″E
Websiteflughafen-saarbruecken.de
Map
SCN
Location of the airport in South Saarland
Runways
Direction Length Surface
ft m
09/27 6,562 2,000 Asphalt
09L/27R 1,788 545 Grass

History

First years

The history of aviation in Saarbrücken, the capital of the German federal state Saarland, began on 17 September 1928 in the district of St. Arnual. Flights operated from Saarbrücken-St. Arnual Airport until 1939. The first plane to use the airport was a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt stopping en route to Paris. In 1929 routes to Frankfurt and on to Berlin and Karlsruhe and then to Munich, Vienna and Budapest were opened.

The airport's suboptimal location meant winter flights were not possible and bad weather and poor flying conditions caused frequent problems. Because of this, Saarbrücken-St. Arnual was closed in 1939. A new airport was built in the district of Ensheim. However, the outbreak of the Second World War made opening the airport impossible.

The airport in Ensheim finally opened in 1964 after several years of reconstruction. In 1972, Saarbrücken Airport became one of 17 airports in Germany to offer international flights.

Development in the 2000s

In 2005, a record year, nearly 500,000 passengers used Saarbrücken Airport.

In 2006, Saarbrücken Airport suffered difficulties caused by the opening of a converted former military airport, Zweibrücken Airport, just approx. 40 km (25 mi) away. German leisure airline Hapagfly relocated from Saarbrücken and opened domestic routes in direct competition with Saarbrücken. In 2006, one day when Hapagfly flew from Heraklion to Saarbrücken, there were bad weather conditions at the airport. Pilots tried twice to land at Saarbrücken on a wet runway. They went on to land at Zweibrücken Airport. Following this incident, Hapagfly decided to relocate all their flights from Saarbrücken to Zweibrücken as Zweibrücken has a longer runway.[1] In July 2014 it was reported that Zweibrücken Airport had filed for bankruptcy due to illegal subsidies as it is too close to Saarbrücken Airport, which has been in existence for much longer.[2]

After Hapagfly left, Air Berlin opened routes from Saarbrücken to Palma de Mallorca and Berlin–Tegel Airport, but it ceased flying in 2017. Additionally, Luxair has made Saarbrücken Airport its secondary hub due to its proximity to Luxembourg.

Saarbrücken Airport handled 452,314 passengers in 2011.

Due to Zweibrücken Airport's financial difficulties, TUIfly announced that their seasonal base would be relocated from there to Saarbrücken Airport from summer 2015.[3] Other airlines also moved their leisure flights from Zweibrücken to Saarbrücken for the 2015 summer season. As a result, the airport saw a significant increase in traffic compared to previous seasons.[4]

Facilities

Saarbrücken Airport consists of one passenger terminal building which features check-in-facilities as well as some shops and restaurants and a covered observation deck. The building is not equipped with jet bridges, therefore walk-boarding and bus-boarding is used. The apron right in front of the terminal features five aircraft stands which can accommodate mid-sized aircraft such as the Airbus A320.

Airlines and destinations

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

AirlinesDestinations
Corendon Airlines Europe Seasonal: Fuerteventura (begins 7 November 2020),[6] Gran Canaria (begins 1 November 2020),[7] Hurghada[8]
DAT Berlin–Tegel
Eurowings Seasonal: Palma de Mallorca
Luxair Hamburg, Luxembourg
SunExpress Antalya
TUI fly Deutschland Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Tenerife–South
Seasonal: Heraklion, Kos, Palma de Mallorca, Rhodes

Statistics
Check-in area
Maintenance facilities at Saarbrücken Airport
Passengers
2000 482,595
2001 480,030
2002 461,299
2003 458,183
2004 459,853
2005 486,230
2006 420,221
2007 349,953
2008 518,283
2009 469,933
2010 491,299
2011 452,314
2012 425,429
2013 405,265
2014 353,011
2015 467,092
2016 427,566
2017 396,849
2018 358,868
2019 366,574
Source: ADV.[9]

Ground transportation

Car

The airport is linked to the A1/A6 motorways(Exit Fechingen) which connect to Saarbrücken itself, to the cities of Trier and Mannheim and to Luxembourg. From France it can be reached via federal highway L108. Taxis and car hire agencies are available at the terminal building.[10]

Bus

Regional bus line R10 provides scheduled connections to Saarbrücken city center including Saarbrücken main station.[10]

Accidents and incidents
  • On 30 September 2015, Luxair Flight 9562, operated by Bombardier Q400 LX-LGH, accidentally retracted the landing gear early during the takeoff roll, before the aircraft gained enough airspeed to take off, resulting in the plane landing on its belly. The aircraft was severely damaged.[11][12]
gollark: I sometimes do maths, see.
gollark: See, even though I have a computer which is theoretically a few hundred million times more powerful, I have a *physical* calculator I use for much calculation, since the UI available for calculatification is bad.
gollark: Yes, but it's actually bad.
gollark: I have yet ÆNOTHER never-to-be-meaningfully-finished project idea: a ””calculator””.
gollark: HelloBoi, that CLEARLY violates rule 2?

See also

References
  1. "Tuifly verlässt Anfang November den Flughafen Zweibrücken". airliners.de.
  2. "Flughafen Zweibrücken stellt Insolvenzantrag". airliners.de.
  3. Euro Business Communication Verlag GmbH. "touristik aktuell". touristik-aktuell.de.
  4. "Flughafen Saarbrücken GmbH - NewsDetail de". flughafen-saarbruecken.de. Archived from the original on 2015-02-19.
  5. flughafen-saarbrucken.de - Flugziele "Destinations" (German) retrieved 26 December 2018
  6. https://www.flughafen-saarbruecken.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Passagiere-Besucher/Flugplan/Winterflugplan_2020_2021.pdf
  7. https://www.flughafen-saarbruecken.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Passagiere-Besucher/Flugplan/Winterflugplan_2020_2021.pdf
  8. Liu, Jim (27 January 2020). "Corendon Airlines S20 Network expansion". routesonline.com.
  9. "German Airport Statistics (German)". Archived from the original on 2016-01-24.
  10. "Flughafen Saarbrücken GmbH - By car". flughafen-saarbruecken.de. Archived from the original on 2011-07-08.
  11. "Luxair-Maschinn brécht Start of a kënnt um Bauch un d'Halen" (in Luxembourgish). RTL Télé Lëtzebuerg. Retrieved 30 September 2015.
  12. "Investigation report of an accident with a Bombardier DHC-8 at Saarbrücken airport". BFU. Retrieved 19 September 2017.

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