Photo Gallery Aviation Noise Prompts Protests in Frankfurt
Opponents of the new runway at Germany's busiest transportation hub, the Frankfurt Airport, have been gathering on Monday nights to protest the noise. A recent event at Terminal 1 on Dec. 19 drew an estimated 3,000 and 5,000 participants. Many are starting to draw comparisons to the "Stuttgart 21" protests earlier this year against the radical revamp of the train station in that city and construction of an entire new city district.
As the demonstration took place in Frankfurt, Volker Bouffier, governor of the federal state of Hesse, was in the nearby state capital Wiesbaden meeting with the head of Fraport, the company which operates Frankfurt Airport, as well as representatives from airlines and air traffic control, in a desperate search for ways to keep the skies above the Rhine-Main region (named after the area's two famous rivers) somewhat quieter.
But airport operator Fraport, in which the state of Hesse and the city of Frankfurt hold a majority share, wants to use the new runway to increase the number of takeoffs and landings from just under 90 to over 120 per hour, which in turn means a considerable increase in noise. This protester's headgear indicates that Fraport is a kind of "plague" on residents.
Bouffier's meeting in Wiesbaden last week served as a tacit admission of serious negligence. With its focus on creating growth and jobs, the state government had for years underestimated just how extensively noise from the airport expansion would impact local residents, only to discover to its shock that it may have sentenced its own voters to a life smothered in aircraft noise.
"Really, the only thing left to do is to move away," one resident told SPIEGEL.
The Frankfurt Airport is Germany's largest and also a major hub for German flag carrier airline Lufthansa. The airport's operating company, Fraport, forcecasts that with the opening of the new runway, eventually nearly 90 million passengers per year will fly into or out of the airport or make a connection there in the future.
