FRAPORT AG SUBMITS ZONING APPLICATION FOR A380 MAINTENANCE BASE.

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FRANKFURT, Feb. 3, /News Aktuell-AsiaNet/ -- Frankfurt, Germany (ots) - Fraport AG has submitted a zoning application to the responsible hearing authority - the President of the Darmstadt administrative district - for the construction of a maintenance base for the Airbus A380 superjumbo at Frankfurt Airport (FRA). After notifying aviation authorities in December 2002 of this planned expansion project, Fraport (the owner and manager of FRA) has now been informed by the Hesse Ministry of Economy, Transportation and State Development that the project requires a zoning procedure (project approval procedure).

"We already assumed in December 2002 that a zoning procedure would be required," said Prof. Manfred Schlch, vice chairman of Fraport's executive board. "Therefore, all planning documents, expert opinions and other documents attached to our pre-planning notification, were prepared in the quality and depth required for a zoning procedure." The President of the Darmstadt administrative district will now check whether the submitted application documents are complete and, thereafter, initiate the actual zoning procedure by publishing Fraport's application in the official gazette.

"We urge the fastest possible realization of this maintenance facility. This does not have anything to do with Frankfurt Airport's planned and urgently required capacity expansion through construction of another runway," said Schlch. "We want to and will make Frankfurt Airport ready for this new generation of aircraft - and thus we will strengthen Frankfurt Airport's hub position and provide for its sustainable future. Lufthansa, our main customer, also requires such planning security for its own A380 fleet of at least 15 aircraft in the long term, which it wants to station at FRA starting in 2007." Because the A380 will go ...