On Standby: Kassel's 270 Million Euro Airport to Nowhere

[unhappycamper]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/new-270-million-euro-kassel-airport-lacks-flights-and-passengers-a-938667.html



A regional airport that opened six months ago in the German city of Kassel has close to 140 employees, but no scheduled flights this winter. Everyday operations are legally required, even as the facility hemorrhages money.

On Standby: Kassel's 270 Million Euro Airport to Nowhere
By Philipp Alvares de Souza Soares
December 12, 2013 – 03:14 PM

Maria Anna Muller smokes a Gauloise cigarette as she drives a black VW Touareg across the property. "It's just not true that nothing is happening here," she says.

Muller is the CEO of Kassel Airport GmbH. To her right is the brand new Kassel-Caldren Airport, which opened in April. There's a lot of asphalt, a small tower and a terminal. Muller proudly points to the new sewage facility built just for the airport. There's not much going on today. The pilot of a small jet practices takeoffs and landings and two private Russian aircraft are waiting on the tarmac for their passengers.

This is a normal day in Calden, where the €270 million ($372 million) airport has fallen into a sort of winter sleep only half a year after opening. There hasn't been a single scheduled passenger flight here since October. Local flying schools and a few private jets account for the few flights being processed.

The last major aircraft to land here was an Air Berlin jet chartered by the German government to transport Syrian refugees. The next planned commercial flights will commence in the spring, when a few holiday flights will offer service from Kassel. But even with that small amount of business, profitability is far from being achieved at this regional airport.