Memmingen Airport

History

A military airfield was built at Memmingerberg in 1935. It was used during World War II. After being rebuilt, it was used for US Air Force training flights from 1956. From 1959 to 2003, it was the home base of German Air Force fighterbomber wing 34 ("Allgäu").

The airport was certified as a regional commercial airport on 20 July 2004 and commenced operation on 5 August 2004, but there were no scheduled or regular chartered flights. Scheduled flights to the 2005 Hanover Fair were cancelled due to lack of demand. In June 2005, the district of Oberallgäu granted initial finance of €480,000. A further sum of €200,000 was granted by the city of Memmingen after a popular vote on 25 September 2005. In 2006, scheduled flights to Dortmund and Rostock were planned but cancelled because the carrier became insolvent. In autumn 2006, Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter offered chartered flights to Dortmund for two months, during which only 100 passengers were carried.

In March 2007, a subsidy of €7,500,000 promised by Bavaria was approved by the European Commission. Until 25 September 2008 it was known as Allgäu Airport/Memmingen.

On 28 June 2007, TUIfly started offering domestic flights to Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne/Bonn and also flights to holiday destinations such as Mallorca, Crete, Naples, Rome, Venice and Antalya. In March 2009, Ryanair announced seven new routes to/from Memmingen starting May 2009. They have continued to announce new routes and from May 2010 Ryanair operated 14 routes to and from Memmingen. Wizz Air also started serving Memmingen and has established eight routes since then. On 24 October 2013, Ryanair announced a new seasonal service to Shannon, while Palermo was added as a destination from the summer season of 2015.

On 5 June 2014, the airport welcomed its five-millionth passenger.

In December 2014, InterSky announced that it would be taking over the domestic flights from Memmingen to Berlin and Hamburg by 1 March 2015, as Germanwings had announced that it would cease the same services just a few days earlier. In earlier years, these routes had already been unsuccessfully served by TUIfly, Air Berlin and Avanti Air.

In April 2015, Wizz Air announced that it would serve Vilnius as its eighth destination from Memmingen.

In May 2015, InterSky announced that it would have a presence at Memmingen Airport by October 2015 consisting of one aircraft, adding a new route to Cologne and increasing frequencies on the already existing services to Berlin and Hamburg. Later, that plan was changed as a triangular route of Friedrichshafen - Memmingen - Cologne/Bonn will be established instead of basing an aircraft in Memmingen. However, on 6 November 2015, InterSky ceased all operations due to financial difficulties, leaving Memmingen again without any domestic connections.

Terminal

Memmingen Airport has one passenger terminal building equipped with 10 check-in counters and 7 departure gates used for Schengen flights (1-3) on the ground floor and non-Schengen flights (4-7) on the upper floor. The building has no jet bridges, therefore walk-boarding and bus-boarding is used. There is also a duty-free shop, as well as some restaurants and car-hire facilities at the airport. The terminal has a capacity of two million passengers per year.

Runway and apron

Memmingen Airport has an Instrument Landing System (ILS) Category 1 for runway 24 and is equipped with NDB/DME and GPS RNAV. Although the runway length of nearly 3 km (1.9 mi) would allow larger planes to take off and land, the airport's operations certificate only allows planes with wingspans up to 36 m due to the narrow taxiways originally designed to accommodate Lockheed F-104G Starfighters and Panavia Tornados. Additionally, the runway is only 30 metres (98 ft) wide due to its former use as a facility for jet fighter aircraft. However, an expansion to the international usual 45 metres (148 ft) has been granted and is under preparation as of 2016.

Two aprons provide parking spaces for five mid-sized aircraft such as the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 at a time as well as some smaller business jets. There is an additional smaller apron for general aviation aircraft located on the other side of the runway.

Airlines and destinations

The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights at Memmingen Airport:

Road

The airport is located close to the A96 motorway (Memmingen Ost exit) and its intersection with the A7 motorway. The A96 leads directly to Munich, Lake Constance and Switzerland, while the A7 leads to Stuttgart and Austria. Taxis as well as several car-hire companies are available at counters in the terminal building.

Coach

There are coach services from Memmingen Airport directly to Munich (journey time approx. 90 minutes), the Alps, other towns in Bavaria and East Germany.

Bus

Local bus lines 2 and 810/811 connect the airport within a 15-minute drive with Memmingen town centre, including Memmingen railway station, from where frequent Deutsche Bahn regional services depart for Munich (journey time approx. 1:35) and Augsburg, as well as some long-distance Swiss Federal Railways services to Bregenz and Zürich.