Germany's fastest growing airport has ambitions to become a centre for domestic business and a gateway for logistics, writes Dom Welling.
At most of the world's airports the sight of paramedics, police and firefighters responding to an emergency would probably be a cause of concern, but at Weeze Airport it is just a normal day.
That's because the airport is a training centre for the international Rescue Services Course (BOTC), which offers EU accredited training and live scenarios for emergency services personnel.
Some 10,000 paramedics, police, and firefighters flew in from all over Europe to train at the centre last year, but this is just one of the business opportunities Weeze is pursuing.
Located in north west Germany, this privately-owned airport has been the country's fastest growing airport for more than four years in terms of passenger numbers, and is now looking to expand its cargo facilities as well.
The former military airbase opened as a commercial airport in May 2003, and in its first year handled just 200,000 passengers.
Since then, thanks to the arrival of Ryanair, this figure has jumped to an estimated 2.3mppa in 2011.
Holger Terhorst, marketing manager at Airport Weeze, said: "Our main goal is to attract more traffic and hit 5mppa in the next ten years."
Ryanair made Weeze its 19th base in Europe in 2007 and now runs around 45 routes from the airport - as a result, the low-budget carrier accounts for 90% of all traffic at airport, Terhorst said.
Airport City
Although the airport mainly focuses on tourism and leisure traffic, it is also an aspiring Airport City, with a vision to expand the business park surrounding the gateway as well as boost its cargo activities.
Airport City Weeze is built on 620 hectares of land and has around 250 hectares set aside for its business park - which has been designed to focus on logistics, aviation and leisure.
In addition, the airport's land has more than 500 residential and business buildings.
For potential investors and entrepreneurs, there are five specific areas to the new Airport City Weeze, with different focuses, including the airport, the industrial zone, the plaza (hotel and catering), the park (leisure and relaxation), and the entrance zone.
Luger van Bebber, managing director of Airport City Weeze, said: "The expressed interest from international investors, manufacturing, logistic, freight companies and the leisure industry leaves us in no doubt as to the rapid pace of the future development of Weeze business & leisure complex."
Business park
Airport City Weeze is trying to develop a business park that is along the same model as the airport city itself and so it is focusing on smaller, low-cost businesses. At the moment there are around 20-25 small businesses operating at the airport.
Holger Terhorst, marketing manager at Airport Weeze, said: "Airport City Weeze wants to become a centre for aviation business and logistics - so it is targeting businesses which are related to aviation in particular."
Types of businesses currently at the airport include aviation maintenance firms, fuelling operators, and manufacturing companies.
There is also an advertising billboard manufacturer based in the industrial zone and a tour operator's office.
Location
The Airport City is located in the North Rhine Westphalia region, directly on the border of Holland, and therefore is centrally positioned between the important economic regions of the Ruhr, the Rhineland and Holland.
The area is also well connected in terms of inter-modal transportation. For example it is 10 minutes away from the A57 motorway, and the airport also runs regular shuttle buses to the nearest rail connection which is 5km away in Weeze.
Meanwhile, the Rhine and Meus ports on the river Rhine are also close by.
Air services
Airport Weeze, which forms the centre of the Airport City, specialises in the low-cost segment and charter flights.
Its main partner is Ryanair, which currently has seven aircraft based at the airport.
The carrier, which used to base nine aircraft at the gateway, flew to more than 70 European business and leisure destinations in 2010, boosting passenger figures from 2.4 million in 2009 to 2.9 million in 2010.
Ryanair reduced the number of its aircraft to seven because of the new German passenger tax which was implemented at the beginning of this year.
Last year the German government approved the air passenger duty tax, or "ecological air travel levy", meaning that passengers boarding flights in Germany are now charged €8 for domestic and intra-European short-haul flights, €25 for medium-haul flights and €45 for long-haul flights.
As a result, Terhorst said passenger numbers are expected to fall 20% between 2010 and 2011 - from 2.9mppa to 2.3mppa - as Ryanair reduced its routes by 13 and an XL Airways aircraft, which was previously based at Weeze by the Dutch tour operator Sundio for fullcharter flights in summer 2010, moved to Schiphol for this season, where there is no such tax.
Other airlines that currently operate from the airport include Bulgaria Air, Sky Airlines, Transavia, Wizz Air, XL Airways and Corendon Airlines. Airberlin also started operations from the airport in April.
Cargo
According to Fred de Jonge, head of logistic development at the airport, Weeze has the facilities - 3,000sqm - for it to be a cargo centre, but very little cargo actually passes through the airport at the moment.
De Jonge said: "The airport is not open after 11pm, so because there are no night time flights, it is not possible to be a big cargo airport.
"At the moment it is a small part of the airport but we are developing it."
He said that at the moment, cargo services at Airport Weeze were "ad hoc" , but that the gateway was interested in expanding, and was "preparing new activities" .
De Jong added that he was currently in talks with every major logistic service provider including DHL and UPS.
He said: "We are preparing within the facilities that we have, but you must remember we are still very new so we cannot do everything.
"We are working with domestic providers and are hoping to start up flights within Germany and the Benelux."
He added: "The plan is then to expand to several countries within the right distance - for example the UK, Skandinavia, Spain, and Italy."
