Friedrichshafen Airport (german: link=no, Flughafen Friedrichshafen, ; also known as ''Bodensee Airport Friedrichshafen'') is a minor

international airport An international airport is an airport with customs and border control facilities enabling passengers to travel between countries around the world. International airports are usually larger than domestic airports and they must feature longer ...

1.9 miles (3 km) north of

Friedrichshafen Friedrichshafen ( or ; Low Alemannic: ''Hafe'' or ''Fridrichshafe'') is a city on the northern shoreline of Lake Constance (the ''Bodensee'') in Southern Germany, near the borders of both Switzerland and Austria. It is the district capital (''K ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, on the banks of

Lake Constance Lake Constance (german: Bodensee, ) refers to three Body of water, bodies of water on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps: Upper Lake Constance (''Obersee''), Lower Lake Constance (''Untersee''), and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, ca ...

(German: ''Bodensee''). It is the third biggest airport in the German state of

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

after

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...

and Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden and served 559,985 passengers in 2015. Friedrichshafen features flights to European metropolitan and leisure destinations. Due to its proximity to the

Austrian Alps The Central Eastern Alps (german: Zentralalpen or Zentrale Ostalpen), also referred to as Austrian Central Alps (german: Österreichische Zentralalpen) or just Central Alps, comprise the main chain of the Eastern Alps in Austria and the adjacent ...

it is also heavily used during the winter by skiing tourists. The ''Messe Friedrichshafen'' convention center is just north of the airport's runway. The center hosts an annual European

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

conference ''

AERO Friedrichshafen AERO Friedrichshafen is a trade show dedicated to European general aviation. It is held yearly in April on the shores of Lake Constance at the exhibition center of Friedrichshafen, Germany right next to Friedrichshafen Airport Friedrichshaf ...

'' and other conferences.

History

This airport was established at , north-east of Friedrichshafen in 1915 when the first hangars were constructed. The first scheduled passenger flights with

Zeppelin A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, pp ...

airship An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early ...

s started from here, long before they were relocated to

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

Zeppelinheim Neu-Isenburg is a town in Germany, located in the Offenbach district of Hesse. It is part of the Frankfurt Rhein-Main urban area and has a population of 38,204 (2020). The town is known nowadays mainly for its regionally used shopping centre, th ...

. Friedrichshafen saw its first scheduled passenger flights in 1929 with

Deutsche Luft Hansa ''Deutsche Luft Hansa A.G.'' (from 1933 styled as ''Deutsche Lufthansa'' and also known as ''Luft Hansa'', ''Lufthansa'', or DLH) was a German airline, serving as flag carrier of the country during the later years of the Weimar Republic and t ...

services to

- Böblingen Airport. By 1935 the flights were being made in Junkers Ju-52 passenger aircraft. Important engineering firms such as

Maybach Maybach (, ) is a German luxury car brand that exists today as a part of Mercedes-Benz. The original company was founded in 1909 by Wilhelm Maybach and his son Karl Maybach, originally as a subsidiary of ''Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH'', and ...

and

Zahnradfabrik Friedrichshafen ZF Friedrichshafen AG, also known as ZF Group, originally ''Zahnradfabrik Friedrichshafen'', and commonly abbreviated to ZF (ZF = "Zahnradfabrik" = "Cogwheel Factory"), is a German car parts maker headquartered in Friedrichshafen, in the south- ...

(ZF), subsidiaries of

Luftschiffbau Zeppelin Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH is a German aircraft manufacturing company. It is perhaps best known for its leading role in the design and manufacture of rigid airships, commonly referred to as ''Zeppelins'' due to the company's prominence. The name ...

, were also founded in Friedrichshafen. During World War 2, their engines and gearboxes for tanks were flown directly from the airport to e.g.

Kharkov Kharkiv ( uk, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest city and municipality in Ukraine.

, to replenish much-needed supplies during the

Battle of Kursk The Battle of Kursk was a major World War II Eastern Front engagement between the forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union near Kursk in the southwestern USSR during late summer 1943; it ultimately became the largest tank battle in history. ...

. ''Delta Air'' established the first successful post-war regional flights in 1978, flying to Stuttgart and

Zürich Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...

. A new terminal building and runway were built between 1988 and 1994. Another new terminal was opened in 2010.

InterSky InterSky, legally ''Intersky Luftfahrt GmbH'', was an Austrian airline headquartered in Bregenz, which operated scheduled services from its base at Friedrichshafen Airport, Germany, to major cities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as well ...

, based at the airport, shut down its key route to

Cologne Bonn Airport Cologne Bonn Airport (german: Flughafen Köln/Bonn 'Konrad Adenauer') is the international airport of Germany's fourth-largest city Cologne, and also serves Bonn, former capital of West Germany. With around 12.4 million passengers passing thr ...

, which it had operated for seven years, in October 2010 due to tough competition from

Germanwings Germanwings GmbH was a German low-cost airline wholly owned by Lufthansa which operated under the Eurowings brand. It was based in Cologne with hubs at Cologne Bonn Airport, Stuttgart Airport, Hamburg Airport, Berlin Tegel Airport, Munich Airp ...

which started flying the same route in spring 2010. Germanwings closed the route on 14 June 2015. On 5 November 2015,

ceased all operations due to financial difficulties, leading to the termination of domestic connections to

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...

and

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

. In December 2015, it was announced that the airport might need financial support from its majority owners—the city of Friedrichshafen and the surrounding county—as the shutdown of InterSky—one of the airport's largest customers—led to financial difficulties. Also in December 2015,

VLM Airlines VLM Airlines was a Belgian airline offering scheduled, charter and ACMI services. It was headquartered at Antwerp International Airport in Deurne. It ceased operations on 31 August 2018. It is not to be confused with its Belgian sister airline ...

announced it would base three aircraft in Friedrichshafen to take over the domestic routes to Berlin, Düsseldorf and Hamburg previously provided by InterSky.austrianaviation.net - FDH: VLM tritt InterSky-Erbe an
18 December 2015 However, VLM went bankrupt in June 2016, leaving these routes abandoned again.flightglobal.com - VLM files for bankruptcy
22 June 2016 In 2019,

Sun-Air of Scandinavia SUN-AIR of Scandinavia A/S, usually shortened to SUN-AIR, is a Danish regional airline headquartered in Billund, with its main base at Billund Airport. It operates scheduled services as a franchise of British Airways using their name and corp ...

, a

franchisee Franchising is based on a marketing concept which can be adopted by an organization as a strategy for business expansion. Where implemented, a franchisor licenses some or all of its know-how, procedures, intellectual property, use of its busine ...

British Airways British Airways (BA) is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a populati ...

announced routes from Friedrichshafen to Düsseldorf, Hamburg and Toulouse with only the Düsseldorf service remaining in 2021, partly due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

.aerotelegraph.com
(German) 11 November 2020

Facilities

The airport consists of one passenger terminal building with seven departure gates (A-G) as well as some shops and restaurants. The apron consists of seven aircraft stands; there are no

jet bridge A jet bridge (also termed jetway, jetwalk, airgate, gangway, aerobridge/airbridge, skybridge, finger, airtube, expedited suspended passenger entry system (E-SPES), or its official industry name passenger boarding bridge (PBB)) is an enclosed, ...

s. The terminal building also features office space and an observation deck called the ON TOP terrace. The airport also features an

airship hangar Airship hangars (also known as airship sheds) are large specialized buildings that are used for sheltering airships during construction, maintenance and storage. Rigid airships always needed to be based in airship hangars because weathering was a ...

as well as

facilities. The airport was previously the base of

, an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n regional airline which is now defunct. A museum dedicated to Dornier Flugzeugwerke, a German aircraft manufacturer, is located next to the terminal.

Airlines and destinations

The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights at Friedrichshafen Airport:bodensee-airport.eu - Schedules
retrieved 21 May 2022

Statistics

2003-07-26_17-53-36_Germany_Baden-Württemberg_Hirschlatt

Ground transportation

Car

Friedrichshafen can be reached from all directions via federal highways B30 and B31 which are connected to several motorways such as the A96 from

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

or the A13/ A14 from

and

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

. The airport is signposted throughout the city. Taxis and rental car agencies are available at the terminal building.

Train

Friedrichshafen Airport has its own small railway station named ''Friedrichshafen Flughafen'' directly across from the terminal building. It is regularly served by local DB Regio and Bodensee-Oberschwaben-Bahn trains, which continue to the city center of Friedrichshafen or the nearest major city,

Ulm Ulm () is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Danube on the border with Bavaria. The city, which has an estimated population of more than 126,000 (2018), forms an urban district of its own (german: link=no, ...

References

External links

Official website
* * {{Authority control Airports in Baden-Württemberg Buildings and structures in Bodenseekreis

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

Airports established in 1913 1913 establishments in Germany