Munich Airport to develop “future-focused” innovation campus

THE SKY'S THE LIMIT: LabCampus at Munich Airport

Germany’s second biggest airport will soon be home to a thriving innovation hub, churning out ideas for key sectors of aviation.

Munich Airport’s LabCampus sets out to foster cooperation between companies and industries by bringing together leading experts, companies – from start-ups to global players, creative minds and investors – at the heart of a transportation hub with links to over 260 destinations worldwide and plenty of room for real estate development.

“There are 150,000 people at Munich Airport every day: passengers, employees and visitors who are potential customers, business partners and visitors for LabCampus. Nowhere else will you find better connectivity to customers and partners,” said Thomas Weyer, CFO and Director of Infrastructure at Munich Airport, making the case for the decisive advantage of the LabCampus location.

Albert Füracker, the Bavarian State Secretary for Finance – representing Dr. Markus Söder, the Chairman of the Munich Airport Supervisory Board – added: “With LabCampus, Bavaria – which is now already among the leaders in the most respected rankings of places to do business – will become even more attractive. For us, this forward-looking project will ideally complement our clustering policy for high-tech industries and other key sectors. It will showcase a successful and prosperous Bavaria of the future.”

The new campus will offer a meeting point for high-tech industries and key sectors working in such areas as aerospace, digitalisation, energy and mobility.

Potential key partners include such companies as Siemens and Design Offices as well as research organisations including the Fraunhofer Institute, Friedrich Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and UnternehmerTUM, the start-up incubator of the Technical University of Munich.

Munich Airport has said it will also play the role of “curator”, as the “campus manager”. FMG, the airport operating company, will ensure the appropriate mix of industries and companies, bring the right partners together and develop the campus infrastructure and utilities.

FMG will establish a separate subsidiary to manage the project. “In the age of globalisation and digitalisation, airports have to blaze new trails to find and retain competitive advantages. In that regard, LabCampus is a step that anticipates the future,” said Dr. Michael Kerkloh, the CEO and President of Munich Airport.

The development of the innovation site in the north-west of the airport will proceed in several stages. Quadrant 1 will start with the construction of office buildings and FMG’s own Airport Academy. Also part of LabCampus is the Information Security Hub, the centre dedicated to the fight against cybercrime that opened at the end of January. An important priority is to ensure that the planned uses of the campus do not compete with local economies in the airport region. With that in mind, the city of Freising, on whose land LabCampus will be built, had a seat at the planning sessions right from the start. The airport will finance the project – as is the case with all of its current expansion projects – with its own resources.