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Frankfurt International Airport , known in German as Rhein-Main-Flughafen, Flughafen Frankfurt am Main or Frankfurt Airport, is located near Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It is the largest airport in Germany, serving as an important hub for international flights from around the world. It is run by Fraport AG. The southern side of the airport, Rhein-Main Air Base, was a major airlift base for the United States from 1947 until late 2005.
Frankfurt International is a hub of Lufthansa, the German national carrier. Because of under-capacity in Frankfurt, Lufthansa divides traffic between Frankfurt and Munich's Franz Josef Strauß International Airport when possible.
Frankfurt International currently serves more destinations (265 non-stop destinations) than London's Heathrow International Airport, but in terms of passenger traffic Frankfurt International is third in Europe, behind London's Heathrow Airport and Paris's Charles de Gaulle Airport.
Passenger traffic at Frankfurt International Airport in 2005 was 52,219,412, compared with 67,915,389 at Heathrow Airport, and 53,756,200 at Charles de Gaulle Airport.
In terms of plane movement, Frankfurt was second in Europe with 490,147 planes , between Charles de Gaulle Airport (522,619) and Heathrow (477,888).
In terms of cargo traffic, Frankfurt was second in Europe with 1,963,141 metric tonnes (2,163,992 US tons), just behind Charles de Gaulle Airport (2,010,000 metric tonnes) and Heathrow (1,389,591 metric tonnes).
Nevertheless, there are plans to expand Frankfurt Airport with a fourth runway and a new Terminal 3, modifications the airport to be able to service the new Airbus A-380 plane have already taken place, including the building of a large A380 maintenance facility near the former U.S. Air Base which is not yet complete. After Dubai (with forty-three A380s), the airport will be the base for the second-largest A380 fleet in the world (up to fifteen A380s).
There are also plans to build a fourth runway to increase the capacity of the airport. However, the work has been delayed several times due to environmental concerns. A final decision about zoning is expected for 2007, and the runway could be in operation by 2010.
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History
The Rhein-Main Airport and Airship Base opened in 1936 and was the second-largest airport in Germany (after Tempelhof Airport in Berlin) through World War II. After the war, it served as the main West German operations base for the Berlin Airlift.
The airport did not emerge as a major international hub until 1972, when its new passenger terminal (now Terminal 1) opened.
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Incidents on flights that departed from Frankfurt
In 1969, Ariana Flight 701, a Boeing 727 of Ariana Afghan Airlines was arriving at London Gatwick Airport from Frankfurt International when it crashed into a house, killing 50 of the 66 people aboard. Two people died on the ground.
On 22 May 1983 during an airshow at the Rhein-Main Air Base, a Canadian RCAF F-104 Starfighter crashed onto a nearby road, hitting a car and killing all passengers, a pastor's family of 5. The pilot was able to eject.
The first leg of Pan Am Flight 103 (a Boeing 727) took off from Frankfurt. About half of the passengers and baggage changed planes at Heathrow Airport to continue to the U.S. A bomb exploded on the aircraft (Boeing 747) above the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all the passengers onboard. The bomb was planted by Libyan terrorists.
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Structure and function
Frankfurt Airport has two passenger terminals, which are connected by corridors as well as by people movers and buses.
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Terminal 1
Terminal 1 opened on March 14th, 1972. It was designed in a modern style for the period, with polished silver interiors and corrugated walls. It is divided into three concourses. Lufthansa and its Star Alliance partners currently dominate all of Terminal 1.
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Concourse A
Lufthansa (Abu Dhabi, Abuja, Accra, Addis Ababa, Alexandria, Algiers, Almaty, Amman, Amsterdam, Ashgabat, Asmara, Athens, Atlanta, Bahrain, Baku, Bangalore, Bangkok, Barcelona, Beijing, Beirut, Belgrade, Berlin-Tegel, Bilbao, Birmingham, Bologna, Boston, Brussels, Bucharest-Otopeni, Budapest, Buenos Aires-Ezeiza, Cairo, Cape Town, Caracas, Casablanca, Chicago-O'Hare, Copenhagen, Dallas/Fort Worth, Dammam, Delhi, Denver, Detroit, Doha, Dubai, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Edinburgh, Faro, Florence, Gothenburg-Landvetter, Guangzhou, Hamburg, Hanover, Helsinki, Hof-Plauen, Hong Kong, Houston-Intercontinental, Hyderabad, Istanbul-Atatürk, Jakarta, Jeddah, Johannesburg, Karachi, Katowice, Kazan, Khartoum, Kiev-Boryspil, Kolkata, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait, Lagos, Larnaca, Leipzig/Halle, Linz, Lisbon, London-City, London-Heathrow, Los Angeles, Madras, Madrid, Manchester, Manila, Marseille, Mexico City, Miami, Milan-Linate, Milan-Malpensa, Minsk, Moscow-Sheremetyevo, Münster/Osnabrück, Mumbai, Munich, Muscat, Nagoya, New York-JFK, Newark, Nice, Nizhniy Novgorod, Nuremberg, Oslo, Osaka-Kansai, Paderborn, Palma de Mallorca, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Perm, Philadelphia, Portland (OR), Porto, Poznan, Prague, Riga, Rimini, Riyadh, Rome-Fiumicino, Rostov, St. Petersburg, Samara, San Francisco, Sanaa, São Paulo-Guarulhos, Seoul-Incheon, Shanghai-Pudong, Singapore, Split, Stavanger, Stockholm-Arlanda, Stuttgart, Tallinn, Tehran-Mehrabad, Tel Aviv, Tokyo-Narita, Toulouse, Toronto-Pearson, Tripoli, Tunis, Turin, Ufa, Vancouver, Verona, Vienna, Vilnius, Warsaw, Washington-Dulles, Zagreb, Zurich)
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Concourse B
Condor Airlines (Agadir, Anchorage, Antalya, Bourgas, Cancun, Colombo, Fairbanks, Faro, Fort Myers, Halifax, Havana, Holguin, Ibiza, La Palma, Lanzarote, Larnaca, Las Vegas, Menorca, Mauritius, Mombasa, Orlando, Oslo, Palma de Mallorca, Porlamar, Puerto Plata, Punta Cana, Rhodes, San José (CR), Tenerife-Sur Reina, Thessaloniki, Tobago, Valencia, Vancouver, Varadero, Whitehorse)
Hapagfly (Antalya, Chania, Hanover, Ibiza, Karkyra, Kos, Lanzarote, Menorca, Palma de Mallorca, Patras, Reykjavik, Rhodes, Tenerife-Sur Reina, Thessaloniki, Thira)
Varig (Rio de Janeiro-Galeão, São Paulo-Guarulhos)
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Concourse C
Air India (Bangalore, Chennai, Chicago-O'Hare, Delhi, Los Angeles, Mumbai)
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Terminal 2
Terminal 2 opened on October 24th, 1994. It is designed to resemble a classical railway station from its landside facade. It is divided into two concourses.
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Concourse D
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Concourse E
Air Berlin (Alicante, Araxos, Arrecife, Brindisi, Catania, Chania, Corfu, Faro, Fuerteventura, Funchal, Heraklion, Ibiza, Jerez, Kos, Lamezia Terme, Las Palmas, Malaga, Munich, Mykonos, Nuremberg, Olbia, Palma de Mallorca, Rhodes, Santorini, Tenerife South, Thessaloniki, Zürich)
Air Transat (Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal, Toronto-Pearson, Vancouver)
BA Connect (Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, London-City, Manchester)
Enkor (Moscow-Domodedovo)
Iberia (Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, Zaragoza)
LTU International (Alicante, Antalya, Cancun, Faro, Ibiza, Kavala, Kerkyra, Lanzarote, Manorca, Mauritius, Monastir, Palma de Mallorca, Puerto Plata, Punta Cana, Rhodes, Samos, Sharm El Sheik, Tenerife-Sur Reina, Thessaloniki, Valencia, Varadero, Varna)
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Other Features & Amenities
Frankfurt has two cargo terminals, North and South, as well as a separate General Aviation Terminal on the south side of the airport. There is also a Sheraton hotel adjacent to Terminal 1. Terminal 1 also has a full-service German Post Office & DHL office open to the public.
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Ground transportation
Deutsche Bahn operates the AiRail Service in conjunction with Lufthansa, American Airlines and Emirates. There is a fast ICE service to Cologne with one or two stops only.
The service operates to Bonn Hbf, Cologne Hbf, Düsseldorf Hbf, Freiburg Hbf, Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe, Karlsruhe Hbf, Hamburg Hbf Rail Station, Hanover Hbf, Mannheim Hbf, Munich Hbf, Nuremberg Hbf, and Stuttgart Hbf. The long-distance railway station is adjacent to Terminal 1. For regional and some night services, a regional station is situated underground, providing a frequent S-Bahn link operated by S-Bahn Rhein-Main link to Frankfurt central station.
Trains take 12 minutes to reach Frankfurt's city centre and depart roughly every 15 minutes on weekdays from the regional train station.
The airport is located adjacent to the A3 and A5 autobahns; taxis to the city center cost approximately 20 euro.
Various transport companies provide bus services to the airport.
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See also
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