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OO RUEHAG RUEHDF RUEHLZ
DE RUEHFT #0463/01 0461138
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O 151138Z FEB 08
FM AMCONSUL FRANKFURT
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 4667
RULSDMK/DEPT OF TRANSPORTATION WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
RHMCSUU/FAA NATIONAL HQ WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
INFO RUCNFRG/FRG COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 2910

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 FRANKFURT 000463 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/AGS 
PASS TO EB 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EAIR ECON EIND ENRG PGOV SENV EU GM
SUBJECT: Frankfurt Airport Expansion and Night Flights Update 
 
REF:  07 BERLIN 2224, 07 STATE 146665 
 
¶1. SUMMARY: Numerous municipalities and several air carriers filed 
legal challenges to the Frankfurt airport expansion plan before the 
February 8 deadline, creating a legal tangle for a Hesse state court 
to sort out.  The main sticking point in the plan to build an 
additional runway and terminal remains the proposed exceptions to 
the night flight ban, which the municipalities oppose because of the 
noise and the airlines see as essential for their business.  The 
court will most likely have fifteen months to decide between the 
competing claims, with construction possibly beginning sometime in 
¶2011.  END SUMMARY. 
 
Challenged from All Sides 
------------------------- 
¶2.  When the Frankfurt airport enlargement plan was published 
December 18, 2007, the Hesse state government gave all sides until 
February 8, 2008 to submit legal challenges.  Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, 
Darmstadt, Mainz, Hanau, Offenbach and several smaller 
municipalities all filed lawsuits against the plan.  Most objected 
to the seventeen proposed exceptions to the ban on night flights 
between 11:00 P.M. and 5:00 A.M. and the resulting increase in late 
evening noise.  Several neighboring towns also expressed concern 
that the expansion of the airport will affect their own plans for 
growth.  In the case of Frankfurt, CDU Lord Mayor Petra Roth was 
forced to go along with the challenge after her party and its 
coalition partner, the Greens, abstained in a city council vote per 
their original coalition agreement.  Individual appeals, including 
class-action suits by affected groups, have a separate deadline of 
February 25. 
 
¶3.  Cargo and passenger carriers Lufthansa, Condor, TUIfly and 
Deutsche Post also filed lawsuits against the plan, claiming that 
the seventeen exceptions allowed are insufficient.  [Note: Cargo and 
postal flights would have priority over passenger flights between 11 
P.M. and 5 A.M., with passenger flights being banned outright 
between 1 A.M. and 4 A.M.  End Note.] Condor and TUIfly, who are 
low-cost carriers, argue that their business is dependent on cheaper 
night flights and have said that 2,000 jobs are at stake should the 
plan go through as proposed.  Companies who have their hubs in 
Frankfurt, such as Lufthansa, will have first claim to the seventeen 
flights, but Lufthansa says that it will need forty-one flights just 
for itself and may have to move its cargo operations if the plan 
goes through unchanged. 
 
What Comes Next? 
---------------- 
¶4.  Dr. Holger Sewering, head of project planning at the Hesse State 
Chancellery, told Econ Off and Econ Spec February 12 that he expects 
construction to begin in 2011, giving the Hesse Administrative Court 
twelve to fifteen months to consider all legal challenges.  He was 
optimistic that the seventeen night flight exceptions would survive 
the appeals, since the government took great care to ensure that the 
plan would withstand challenge when drafting it.   He said it was 
not clear whether the court would have to consider all individually 
or could rule on all of them at once.  The ruling could also be 
appealed to the Federal Administrative Court, a move which Dr. 
Sewering felt was unlikely to succeed.  He saw no chance of the 
federal government intervening in favor of the project on the basis 
of "national interest" despite past rumors to that effect. 
 
¶5.  Fraport AG, the managing company of the airport, could legally 
begin construction immediately, running the risk that it would have 
to stop if the lawsuits succeeded.  Fraport officials had originally 
hoped that the new runway and terminal would be operational sometime 
in 2011.  Dr. Sewering said, however, that Fraport had agreed to 
wait for the court's ruling.  He anticipated that it might start 
some preparatory work on existing airport territory and would begin 
implementing the full project once the plan is upheld, even if an 
appeal were filed at the federal level. 
 
¶6.  According to Dr. Sewering, the fact that the future government 
of Hesse remains unclear following the January 27 state elections 
has had little impact on the airport expansion plan.  Although 
Social Democratic candidate Andrea Ypsilanti promised to look into 
the plan were she to become Minister President, she would have no 
legal way to withdraw it.  Current Minister President Roland Koch 
had promised in the past that no night flights would be allowed, but 
later backtracked after the Federal Administrative Court ruled that 
some exceptions had to be made for freight flights in the case of 
the Leipzig airport.  Dr. Sewering expected that the capacity of the 
expanded airport would be sufficient until at least 2025. 
Coincidentally, over the past week the Cologne-Bonn airport extended 
authorization for night flights to remain operational through the 
year 2030, although this may also end up being challenged in the 
courts. 
 
FRANKFURT 00000463  002 OF 002 
 
 
 
¶7.  COMMENT: Although there is room for optimism that the appeals 
process will be concluded with all deliberate speed, the outcome 
still hangs in the balance.  The previous expansion plan was 
completed in the early 1980's only after decades of argument and 
numerous protests, some of them violent.  Both the business 
community and the outgoing state government see the airport as an 
essential contributor to Frankfurt's status as a business hub.  If 
the enlargement gets bogged down in legal challenges, air carriers 
may take the path of least resistance and shift their operations to 
other hubs.  Indeed, last year FedEx decided to move their 
operations to the Cologne-Bonn airport beginning in 2010. 
 
¶8.  This cable was coordinated with Embassy Berlin. 
POWELL