Category: Industry News

Frankfurt am Main, commonly known as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth largest city in Germany, with a 2011 population of 695,624. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010. The city is at the centre of the larger Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region which has a population of 5,600,000 and is Germanys second largest metropolitan region.

 

Frankfurt is the financial and transportation centre of Germany and the largest financial centre in continental Europe. It is the seat of the European Central Bank, the German Federal Bank, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and the Frankfurt Trade Fair, as well as several large commercial banks, e.g. Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank and DZ Bank. Frankfurt Airport is one of the world’s busiest international airports, Frankfurt Central Station is one of the largest terminal stations in Europe, and the Frankfurter Kreuz is one of the most heavily used Autobahn interchanges in Europe. Frankfurt lies in the former American Occupation Zone of Germany, and it was formerly the headquarters city of the U.S. Army in Germany.

 

Frankfurt is an international centre for finance, commerce, culture, transport, education and tourism. It is therefore considered an alpha world city as listed by the Loughborough University group’s 2010 inventory. It was ranked 10th among global cities by the Global Power City Index 2011, 11th by the Global City Competitiveness Index 2012 and 7th among international financial centers by the International Financial Centers Development Index 2012.

Stricter night time curfews recently introduced at Frankfurt airport will force Lufthansa to relocate its busy Cape Town service to Munich. The decision was announced to the media by Kay Kratky, Lufthansa’s passenger manager, at Julys meeting of the Frankfurt aviation club, with reports appearing on airliners.de and news24.com.

 

Introduced at the end of 2011, the curfew at Frankfurt prohibits departures after 23.00. Lufthansa’s Cape Town service departs every evening at 22.15 and this restriction allows little if any leeway should a flight be delayed for any reason. According to Fraport (the operator of Frankfurt) around 14,000 passengers have been stranded overnight (because their flights failed to depart on schedule) since the new curfew took effect.

 

Some 10,000 of these were flying Lufthansa with the remainder booked with foreign carriers. Passengers have either been accommodated at nearby hotels or have had to sleep inside the airport terminal. Frankfurt is a major airline hub so only passengers who originate there will be inconvenienced as Lufthansa holds a monopoly for this route. Lufthansa passengers connecting from other airports in Germany or elsewhere in Europe will be offered connections to Cape Town via Munich.

Regional carrier Flybe has confirmed via Twitter that it will drop its Southampton-Frankfurt route from mid-September. A follower of the airline’s Twitter feed posted the following tweet:
“@flybe looking at flights from Southampton to Frankfurt in Sept /Oct but dates on the website are greyed out after 10/9.”

 

To which Flybe responded: “@newbathroom1 Hi, unfortunately this route will be stopping due to there not being enough demand. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.”
Last year the carrier dropped flights from Frankfurt to both Birmingham and Manchester and this latest move will leave no Flybe services from the German hub.

Gulf Air now claims its German passenger have seamless rail travel to all cities across Germany. Passengers can buy one combined ‘Rail & Fly’ ticket that allows them to fly on the airline and travel to and from any destination on Germany’s Deutsche Bahn network. When booking you need to select Deutsche Bahn Rail Station as your end destination. Upon arrival in Frankfurt you proceed to the fly-rail booth and will be given a voucher for the train.

 

A Bahrain-Frankfurt ‘Rail & Fly’ ticket cost BD308.100 in early July, rising to BD333.100 on July 25, inclusive of taxes.
Karim Makhlouf, Gulf Air Chief Commercial Officer, said Germany is a key premium market for Gulf Air and the agreement will strengthen its presence in the country and enable it to serve the substantial number of passengers who travel to Frankfurt and beyond.

 

Gulf Air now operates 11-weekly flights in two split schedules giving customers convenient options to travel to and from Frankfurt. On Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, the flight will depart Frankfurt at 1620 and reach Bahrain at 2320. The increase in frequency also provides better connectivity to Frankfurt (via Bahrain) for passengers travelling from Lahore, Addis Ababa, Islamabad, Karachi, Chennai, Jeddah, Khartoum, Kochi and Mumbai.

Starwood has announced the first European property under its “eco-wise” Element brand. The 133-studio and suite Element Frankfurt Airport is scheduled to open in 2014, and will be located within the Gateway Gardens development, a new city district on the site of former US military airbase. The district is linked to Frankfurt airport by a shuttle service (approx. four minutes to Terminal 1, and two minutes to Terminal 2), with access to the ICE Express rail system. As with all Element properties, the hotel will be built adhering to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards.

 

Features will include a 24-hour business centre, a meeting room, and a signature restaurant and espresso bar, while rooms will offer fully-equipped kitchen, swivelling flat screen TVs, large desks with open shelving and custom-designed cupboards, bathrooms with rain showers and dual-flush toilets. Starwood’s Element brand launched in 2008 with a property in Lexington, Massachusetts, and has since grown to 15 hotels either open or under development. Most of these are located in the US, including properties in Las Vegas, Miami, Houston and New York.

Le Meridien Parkhotel in Frankfurt will start offering free WIFI in the lobby starting in 2013. This is a fantastic development for this hotel, as most European properties charge for WiFi. With 12 meeting spaces and 297 bedrooms this hotel offers a beautiful, central setting for any conference or event and now, with the benefit of complimentary WiFi, there is no reason not to give it a try!

Sheraton Frankfurt Airport Hotel just finished a Summer-long renovation of the bar areas and are now looking forward to welcoming guests in Lemons & Limes (Main Bar) plus the new La Cubano Bar (the first smoking bar at the airport). They are also in the process of soft-renovating the guestroom hallways. The Sheraton is the largest of the Starwood conference hotels in Germany for any functions from 2 to 1200 people – and all covering the Pharma Code as a non-rated hotel.

The German National Tourist Board (GNTB) has launched their Top 100 mobile app to help tourists discover the country’s most popular tourist attractions. The GNTB’s first mobile app for Android and iOS devices includes a brief description of each attraction, along with photos and information on opening times, admission prices and directions. The Top 100 was determined by an online survey that attracted over 5,500 respondents and will be repeated annually to keep the list as updated as possible. Users can see the rankings of the attractions as they change in real time, and can also post comments and recommendations. The app can be downloaded for free at www.germany.travel/top100

Air traffic in and out of Frankfurt airport, Europe’s third busiest, struggled to normalise on at the beginning of the month after hundreds of flights were cancelled due to a Lufthansa cabin crew strike. The effects were felt throughout Europe. The Lufthansa strike affected about 900 flights and caused disruption chaos for thousands of passengers. A Lufthansa spokesman said: “On average there are 1,800 Lufthansa flights during a normal day, around half of these took place.” All German regions and all types of flights have been affected, said the spokesman, including long-haul.

 

Thousands of passengers faced disruption as the strike – called by the UFO union – affected Germany’s six main airports including Frankfurt, Berlin and Munich. Frankfurt airport was “strongly affected”, the airline said. UFO is seeking a 5% pay increase for cabin crew and assurances on jobs.

 

The union, which represents about two-thirds of Lufthansa’s 19,000 cabin crew, argues that its members have had no pay rise for three years. The airline has now resumed normal flights and the UFO union representing cabin staff and Lufthansa has now agreed to enter formal mediation talks to resolve the dispute over pay and conditions. Lufthansa has also made concessions on the use of temporary workers