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Press release
- 09.03.2006
- FIFA World Cup 2006 - Hamburg Airport is ready for fans and players from around the world
The preparations are in full swing: Hamburg is expecting 400,000 overnight stays and several million visitors between 9 June and 9 July 2006 for the football World Cup. For the majority of these visitors, Hamburg Airport will be the gateway to the World Cup. The airport is well prepared for the crowds. Around 430 take-offs and landings and 29,250 passengers are handled at Hamburg Airport every day. With its new facilities, the airport has created capacity for further growth in passenger numbers. Everything is in place to deal with short-term passenger booms too, such as that expected during the World Cup.
Thorough route network to the World Cup stadiums
Football fans from around 40 countries can reach Hamburg direct by plane, including Italy, the Czech Republic and Ukraine, whose teams will be playing in the group matches in Hamburg.
There is a wide range of connections available from Hamburg Airport for fans wanting to travel to other German World Cup cities. Three airlines – Lufthansa, dba and Germanwings – offer a total of 150 flights per week to the Bavarian metropolis, Munich. The same three airlines also serve Stuttgart with around 100 direct flights per week. Lufthansa have nearly 90 flights each week to Frankfurt, while there are 30 connections per week to Nuremberg with Lufthansa and dba. There are almost 70 direct flights per week from Hamburg to Cologne, and Leipzig, too, is well-served with 15 non-stop connections per week. Fans wanting to travel to matches in Dortmund and Gelsenkirchen can comfortably reach both football cities via Dusseldorf, served by Lufthansa and dba with more than 75 flights per week. From there it is just a stone’s throw to the World Cup stadiums.
The large number of flights to Frankfurt, Mannheim and Saarbrucken are all perfect for bringing fans to World Cup matches in Kaiserslautern. For fans with tickets to Berlin and Hanover games, Hamburg’s excellent surface connections to make light work of the shorter journeys to these two cities.
Hamburg will be the World Cup base for the United States of America’s national football team. The US players will reach the city quickly and in comfort with the direct flight from New York to Hamburg, operated by Continental Airlines, the world’s sixth-largest airline.
Sporting fever at Hamburg Airport
Hamburg Airport was a major sponsor of Hamburg’s bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games. The airport will resume its role as “Gateway to the Games” for the 2006 football World Cup. The “Blue Goal” designed by illumination artist Michael Batz is a shining example of the sporting fever always in play at Hamburg Airport. The glowing blue colours of the 6.5 metre wide, 5 metre high football goal, mounted on the roof of the largest office building at the airport, can be seen from a long way away.
Travellers passing through the airport don't have to miss out on the World Cup, either. ARD, one of Germany’s public national television networks, will be showing numerous World Cup games live on seven separate 2 metre high monitor towers. The monitors are spread throughout the passenger pier, so that all passengers can pass the time spent waiting for flights by watching the exciting competitions.
Hamburg Airport, as an impressive gateway for visitors from all over the world, is itself also organising many World Cup events. There will be a World Cup studio, table football in the passenger pier, a football competition with teams from the local community and much more. So-called “Welcome Desks” on the arrivals level in Terminals 1 and 2 will welcome guests and provide useful tips about the airport, the city of Hamburg and the World Cup.