Terminal 2 satellite facility at Munich Airport cleared for take-off

The latest sequel in the success story: After the Munich Airport and Lufthansa boards gave the green light to start building the new Terminal 2 satellite facility at Munich Airport, the two companies have now released details of the expansion project.

On hand for the announcement, Dr Michael Kerkloh, the CEO of Munich Airport, said that the planned expansion of capacity will take the Bavarian hub to the next level: “We are gaining handling capacity for an additional 11 million passengers a year, which puts us in the order of magnitude of today’s Frankfurt Airport. This will enable us to maintain the high standards of quality achieved by our airport today as a connecting hub even with the anticipated traffic volume in the future.”

Thomas Klühr, who heads the Munich and Direct Services Division as well as Munich hub operations for Lufthan-sa, sees the project as the key for putting the structures in place to handle the planned long-term growth at the Munich location: “The construction of this satellite facility se-cures Munich’s position as a player among the international premium hubs,” said Klühr. He added that this step represents “the continuation of the success story jointly written by Lufthansa and FMG, and unparallelled anywhere else in the world.” The construction of Terminal 2 marked the first time that an airline and an airport operating company jointly assumed entrepreneurial responsibility for designing, building and op-erating a passenger handling facility of this kind.”

By developing the satellite facility the two companies now want to continue the dy-namic growth in Munich: Terminal 2, which opened in 2003 and was specifically de-signed to handle the hub traffic of Lufthansa and its partners, will already reach its capacity limit of 25 million passengers this year.

The new satellite building is designed as an addition to the existing baggage sorting hall on the apron to the east of Terminal 2. In the future it will be a functional and op-erational component of Terminal 2, with a 600 meter pier providing space for a total of 52 gates. It will also have 27 additional positions adjacent to the building, which will more than double the total number of positions serving Terminal 2. The satellite facility is not a standalone terminal and will not have landside transportation links. Passengers arriving or departing through it will use the check-in and ticket desks and the arrivals area in Terminal 2. The new facility will be linked to Terminal 2 via an un-derground passenger transportation system.

The new building, which is scheduled to go into operation in 2015, will offer all impor-tant services in a total area of 123,000 square meters (over 1.3 million square feet), including two Lufthansa Service Centers with a total of 24 transfer desks and 42 passport control stations for passengers entering and leaving the country. The five Lufthansa lounges in the satellite will double the number of lounges available in and around Terminal 2. To be set up at the center of the satellite on both passenger levels are attractive market places, built around the existing ground traffic control tower. Here passengers will find a broad range of shops and restaurants covering a total area of more than 9,000 square meters (100,000 sq.ft.). With their open concept layout, replete with natural light, the marketplaces will offer interesting shopping opportunities and a pleasant passenger experience. The satellite’s design also treats sustainability as a top priority. The CO2 emissions in the new building will be 40% lower than in the existing T1 and T2 terminals.

Passengers starting their journey in Munich will reach the satellite facility quickly and directly. After checking in and passing through the screening points in Terminal 2, they will be just a few steps from an underground station, where fully automatic trains will take them to the satellite in less than a minute. As in the main Terminal 2 building, the trains will stop at the center of the satellite facility, ensuring that all departure gates are nearby. The simple layout and clear signage in the satellite will also enable connecting passengers to reach their flights quickly and easily.

As in the original Terminal 2 development, the investment costs of 650 million euros for the new building will be shared by FMG and Lufthansa on a 60:40 basis. The archi-tectural firm handling the general planning of the satellite will be the Munich firm Koch + Partner, which already performed this function in the Terminal 2 project.