Weeze Airport , less commonly known as ''Niederrhein Airport'', 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 ...

in the

Lower Rhine region The Lower Rhine region or Niederrhein is a region around the Lower Rhine section of the river Rhine in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany between approximately Oberhausen and Krefeld in the East and the Dutch border around Kleve in the West. As ...

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 ...

. It is used by

Ryanair Ryanair is an Irish ultra low-cost carrier founded in 1984. It is headquartered in Swords, Dublin, Ireland and has its primary operational bases at Dublin and London Stansted airports. It forms the largest part of the Ryanair Holdings family ...

. The airport is situated southwest of the municipality of

Weeze Weeze (, Dutch: ''Wees'') is a municipality in the Lower Rhine (Niederrhein) region, in the northwestern part of North Rhine-Westphalia in the district of Kleve in the region of Düsseldorf. The municipality consists of the town of Weeze and th ...

() and northwest of

Kevelaer Kevelaer ( Low Rhenish: ''Käwela'') is a town in the district of Kleve, in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. It is the largest Catholic pilgrimage location within north-western Europe. More than 1 million pilgrims, mostly from Germany and t ...

, about southeast of the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

city of

Nijmegen Nijmegen (;; Spanish and it, Nimega. Nijmeegs: ''Nimwèège'' ) is the largest city in the Dutch province of Gelderland and tenth largest of the Netherlands as a whole, located on the Waal river close to the German border. It is about 6 ...

, and northwest of the German city of

Duisburg Duisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr Region, Duisburg is the 5th largest city in Nor ...

. Between 2008 and 2013, this was one of Germany's fastest-growing airports; however, the airport handled only 1.23 million passengers in 2019, reflecting a decline in throughput triggered by

reducing its route network.

History

The airport uses the facilities of the former military airbase

RAF Laarbruch Royal Air Force , more commonly known as RAF ICAO EDUL (from 1 January 1995 ETUL) was a Royal Air Force station, a military airfield, located in Germany on its border with the Netherlands. The Station's motto was (). The site now operates a ...

, and began operating as a civil airport in 2003. There is also a large

fire department A fire department (American English) or fire brigade (Commonwealth English), also known as a fire authority, fire district, fire and rescue, or fire service in some areas, is an organization that provides fire prevention and fire suppression se ...

training facility on the airport grounds. Its

IATA The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is a trade association of the world's airlines founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff ...

code is ''NRN'' because of its official name ''Flughafen Niederrhein''. The airport has had several different names in its history as a civil airport. The operators originally wanted to name it after the city of

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 ...

, but the significant distance of to that city, which already had two closer international airports (

Düsseldorf Airport Düsseldorf Airport (german: link=no, Flughafen Düsseldorf, ; until March 2013 ''Düsseldorf International Airport''; ) is the international airport of Düsseldorf, the capital of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is about north ...

as well as

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 throu ...

), resulted in the name being blocked by a court ruling that such a description would be likely to mislead passengers. However, Ryanair still refers to it as "''Düsseldorf-Weeze"''. The airport is actually closer to the Dutch cities of

Venlo Venlo () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the southeastern Netherlands, close to the border with Germany. It is situated in the province of Limburg (Netherland ...

and

Arnhem Arnhem ( or ; german: Arnheim; South Guelderish: ''Èrnem'') is a city and municipality situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands about 55 km south east of Utrecht. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland, located on both banks of ...

, the German cities of

and

Essen Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and D ...

, and the immediate Weeze area than Düsseldorf. Weeze was served by the short-lived, Dutch low-cost carrier

V Bird V Bird (V Bird Airlines Netherlands BV) was a low-cost airline based in the Netherlands which operated services to northern and southern Europe. Its head office was on the grounds of Maastricht Aachen Airport in Beek, Netherlands.

, which opened a base here and operated flights 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 ...

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 ...

and several international destinations, from its inception in 2003 until bankruptcy in 2004. During this time, passenger numbers doubled from 200,000 to 400,000 within a year. In February 2014,

announced the cancellation of 18 routes from Weeze for the 2014 summer season citing a lack of aircraft. In 2019, the airport faced severe financial difficulties due to a fall in passenger numbers by 30 percent over the previous year as a result of the cancellation of several Ryanair routes.

Facilities

Weeze Airport has one passenger terminal building with restaurants, shops, and check-in facilities. The apron, which is to the west of the terminal building, features nine aircraft stands for mid-sized aircraft such as the

Boeing 737-800 The Boeing 737 Next Generation, commonly abbreviated as 737NG, or 737 Next Gen, is a narrow-body aircraft powered by two jet engines and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Launched in 1993 as the third generation derivative of the Boein ...

. As 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 due to the location of the apron to the west side of the terminal building instead in front of it, bus-boarding is used for six stands. Only three stands are close enough to the terminal to be accessed on foot.

Airlines and destinations

The following airlines operate regular scheduled and seasonal flights at Weeze Airport:

Statistics

Ground transportation

Coach

Direct buses serve Düsseldorf Main Station up to 7 times a day; the journey taking 1h 15min. ''Airexpressbus'' offered from June 2007 until spring 2017 a service between Weeze Airport and Amsterdam with stops at

Eindhoven Airport Eindhoven Airport is an airport located west of Eindhoven, Netherlands. In terms of the number of served passengers it is the second largest airport in the Netherlands, with 6.2 million passengers in 2018 (well behind Schiphol, which serves mo ...

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...

and

's-Hertogenbosch s-Hertogenbosch (), colloquially known as Den Bosch (), is a city and municipality in the Netherlands with a population of 157,486. It is the capital of the province of North Brabant and its fourth largest by population. The city is south of th ...

Train

Bus shuttles serve the railway stations of

and

Goch Goch (; archaic spelling: Gog, Dutch: Gogh) is a town in the district of Kleve, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated close to the border with the Siebengewald in Netherlands, approx. south of Kleve, and southeast of Nijmegen. His ...

on a frequent basis. Travellers for Düsseldorf Main Station will need to catch a bus or taxi to either Weeze or Kevelaer railway stations.

References

External links

Official website
* * {{authority control

Buildings and structures in Kleve (district)