Zweibrücken Airport , or ''Flughafen Zweibrücken'' in German, is a regional airport and former 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 Zweibrücken, Germany. It was the smaller of the two passenger airports in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the other being Frankfurt-Hahn Airport. Zweibrücken currently only features general aviation, since scheduled air services ceased in November 2014 due to the airport's financial difficulties.

History

Development into a civil airport

Zweibrücken Airport is located on the site of the former Zweibrücken Air Base which was closed in 1991 following the end of Operation Desert Storm. The former site was reopened as a converted commercial airport on 1 September 1994. In 2006, Germanwings began twice-daily service to Berlin Schönefeld Airport, but ceased them in 2011 due to expensive airports taxes. The airport also used to have regular scheduled service operated 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 ...

to London Stansted Airport. The service was announced on 27 May 2008, but ceased already one year later in May 2009. 264,247 passengers used the airport in 2010, decreasing to 242,880 passengers in 2012. A twice per week service was operated between Zweibrücken and Antalya by Sky Airlines until the airline ceased operations due to financial problems in 2013. These flights were replaced by

Atlasjet AtlasGlobal, named ''Atlasjet'' until 31 March 2015, was a Turkish airline headquartered in Istanbul, which operated scheduled domestic and international passenger services as well as charter flights, mostly out of its base at Istanbul Airport ...

during summer 2013 season, and were taken over by Freebird Airlines for summer 2014. On 3 November 2013, Air Berlin stopped its weekly summer seasonal route to

Palma de Mallorca Palma (; ; also known as ''Palma de Mallorca'', officially between 1983–88, 2006–08, and 2012–16) is the capital and largest city of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. It is situate ...

on behalf of TUI, and were replaced by TUIfly and

Germania Germania ( ; ), also called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman province of the same name, was a large historical region in north- ...

for the 2014 summer season. In July 2014, TUIfly inaugurated the new seasonal route to Ankara, the airport's third destination in Turkey after Antalya and Istanbul. TUIfly operated eight routes out of Zweibrücken Airport, making it one of their focus cities.

Bankruptcy

In July 2014, it was reported that the European Commission decided that up to 56 million Euros of subsidies for the airport were illegal and needed to be paid back. Due to this decision, on 24 July, Zweibrücken Airport filed for

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

. One of the reasons for the Commission's decision is the close proximity to Saarbrücken Airport, which exists much longer. While it was planned to keep the airport operating for general aviation operations, all commercial passenger operations were expected to cease by the end of the 2014 summer schedule. TUIfly decided to provide financial support for the airport to guarantee uninterrupted operations until the end of their summer schedule in November 2014. However, in September 2014, TUIfly announced the closure of their Zweibrücken base as of 8 November 2014. As a replacement, several of their eight scheduled leisure routes, for example to

and Gran Canaria, will be relocated to nearby Saarbrücken Airport. Additionally, Pegasus Airlines' scheduled seasonal service to Istanbul ceased by 29 September 2014 without resumption in 2015.https://book.flypgs.com/Common/ScheduledFlightList.jsp?activeLanguage=DE& The few other remaining summer seasonal charter flights, for example those of

Air VIA Air VIA was a charter airline with its head office in Sofia, Bulgaria, that operated charter flights on behalf of European tour operators. Most Air VIA flights operated from European destinations into Varna Airport and Burgas Airport, the airline ...

to Burgas, moved to Saarbrücken for the 2015 summer season as well. The last scheduled flight took off from Zweibrücken at 13:40 p.m. on 3 November to

Fuerteventura Fuerteventura () is one of the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean, part of the North Africa region, and politically part of Spain. It is located away from the northwestern coast of Africa. The island was declared a biosphere reserve by UNES ...

, also remaining as the last TUIfly operation at the airport and marking the closure of its focus city. Since that day, all scheduled operations at the airport ceased for the then upcoming entire winter season while most of the staff has been laid off due to a lack of funding to keep operations running.

Facilities

Zweibrücken Airport features a small terminal building equipped with three aircraft stands next to it. As there are no jet bridges, walk-boarding is used. Before bankruptcy, the airport could handle mid-sized aircraft such as the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320 family.

Airlines and destinations

All scheduled operations at Zweibrücken Airport ceased by 3 November 2014 due to a lack of funding for the upcoming winter season. The airport used to feature scheduled and charter flights to leisure destinations around the Mediterranean. There was no resumption of services for the 2015 summer season as all former airlines at Zweibrücken either terminated their services to the area, such as Pegasus Airlines, or relocated their routes to Saarbrücken instead. The nearest other minor international airport is Saarbrücken Airport, approximately away.

Statistics

D-ICEL, Piper Aerostar 601P at Zweibruecken airport

Ground transportation

Zweibrücken Airport is only accessible by road. It can be reached via motorway ''A8'' (exit ''Contwig, Flughafen, Bitche (F)'') which leads to

Saarbrücken Saarbrücken (; french: link=no, Sarrebruck ; Rhine Franconian: ''Saarbrigge'' ; lb, Saarbrécken ; lat, Saravipons, lit=The Bridge(s) across the Saar river) is the capital and largest city of the state of Saarland, Germany. Saarbrücken is S ...

and Luxembourg and from France directly via federal highway ''L700''.flughafen-zweibrücken.de - Ihr Weg zu uns
Additionally, the local bus route ''226'' connects the airport with Zweibrücken city centre including Zweibrücken station.

References

External links

Official website
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Zweibrucken Airport Airports in Rhineland-Palatinate Zweibrücken