FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - Work on the third passenger terminal at Germany's largest airport in Frankfurt is progressing according to plan. A few days ago, the authorities approved the middle Pier H, and the fire protection technology also meets the experts' requirements. "We are making very good progress," says the head of operator Fraport, Stefan Schulte, visibly proud during a site inspection on Monday. The MDax company has also announced that the budget of four billion euros will be adhered to "plus/minus 100 million".

Not the same mistakes as at BER

The Fraport bosses are smart enough not to draw comparisons with the capital's BER airport, which finally went online in 2020 after numerous planning errors, significant additional costs and a delay of nine years. Despite its comparable dimensions, something similar should be avoided at all costs with T3. It looks like the measures taken by the people of Frankfurt have worked: The project was encapsulated in an independent limited company, with a "design freeze" preventing constant rescheduling from an early stage. This is the basis for the smooth running of the construction site, says Harald Rohr, Managing Director of the Fraport Ausbau Süd project company.

The terminal, with an initial annual capacity of 19 million passengers, would be about the same size as the fourth largest German airport in Düsseldorf. It can be expanded to accommodate up to 25 million passengers and, according to Schulte, will initially replace Terminal 2 "after Easter 2026", which needs to be completely renovated after more than 30 years of operation. The airlines housed there, such as Air France, British Airways and Emirates, will move to the new building in the south of the airport. Top dog Lufthansa and its Star Alliance partners will remain in Terminal 1 as usual.

One gate has been ready for years

The corona crisis has hit Germany's largest airport hard, but has also taken the pressure off the expansion that has already begun. In the current year, the previous record of around 70.5 million passengers from 2019 will once again be far from reached. When Pier G was completed in 2022 as the first section of the new terminal, nobody needed it - especially not the low-cost airlines such as Ryanair, for which "Pier G" was actually intended. Since then, the part of the building has been in "standstill operation", i.e. kept alive by a small Fraport team. Whether Ryanair will ever return to Frankfurt Airport is written in the stars. The Irish airline is currently further reducing its services in Germany due to high taxes and fees.

Up to 2,000 workers per day are working simultaneously on the construction site of the new terminal. The construction of the 5.6 kilometer long route for the new aircraft runway, which will take passengers from the old terminal and the DB train stations located there to the new part of the airport within 8 minutes, has been completed. Otherwise, T3 can only be reached by car for the time being.

Versatile construction site

The shell of the terminal has been completed and the interior work and the "software" are now underway. Check-in counters with a growing number of self-service baggage acceptance points, stores and restaurants, security checks with the latest CT technology, air conditioning systems, kilometers of conveyor belts for baggage and passengers alike and a whole host of other technical facilities. "No construction site is as versatile as that of an airport," enthuses project manager Isabelle Silvery. Finally, computer terminals and displays will be installed.

The third Pier J next summer and the central main building at the end of 2025 are scheduled to undergo the remaining acceptance tests before real-time tests with thousands of extras. Every single process will be checked once again, says Rohr. Volunteers from the Rhine-Main region are being sought for this. The employees of the stores, restaurants and airlines, who number in the thousands, will also have to be familiarized with the facilities before the launch./ceb/DP/men