The large-scale "Air Defender" manoeuvre of the German Air Force and its NATO partners, which will take place in European airspace from Monday to 23 June, is also likely to have a significant impact on air traffic at Frankfurt Airport. According to a spokesman, operator Fraport expects delays in flights to and from Frankfurt.

Jochen Remmert

Airport editor and correspondent Rhein-Main-Süd.

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The reason: During the exercise with around 250 aircraft and 10,000 soldiers from 25 nations, parts of European airspace will be temporarily closed to civil aviation. Passenger and cargo planes will then have to fly around these sectors. That takes time.

In Frankfurt, more take-offs after 23 p.m., i.e. during the night flight ban, are to be approved by the air traffic supervisory authority located at the Hessian Ministry of Economics and Transport. According to a ministry spokesman, the delays caused by the large-scale maneuver may justify such an exemption. However, even during the time of the manoeuvre, each case will be examined individually by the air traffic control staff at the airport. Landings are permitted until midnight o'clock anyway, as long as they are the exception and are not calculated from the outset by the airline due to a flight schedule that is calculated too tightly.

At the moment, German air traffic control (DFS) in Langen does not assume that "a significant number of scheduled civilian flights will have to be cancelled" in preparation for the manoeuvre. Where expected delays will occur and how serious they will be, air traffic control says it cannot say.

According to a spokesman, Lufthansa is preparing intensively for possible delays, for example with the reservation of hotel rooms and an increased advisory service for passengers. In contrast to threatened strikes, Lufthansa currently sees no need to cancel flights as a precautionary measure.

Airlines such as Lufthansa are relying on information from the European aviation security organization Eurocontrol, among others, in their preparations. According to air traffic control, this has developed simulations based on the data of all actually planned flights and diversion scenarios, which, according to the information, allow the conclusion that no cancellations will be necessary.

However, the confidence of these assumptions is not shared by the air traffic control union (GdF). Assessments from the top of the Air Force, according to which no flight cancellations are to be expected, at most delays of a few minutes, are unrealistic. "The Air Defender military exercise will of course have a massive impact on the course of civil aviation," said GdF Federal Chairman Matthias Mass in a statement.

At the same time, he emphasizes that, against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, such an exercise is absolutely to be welcomed because it has a high cognitive value for NATO. However, it does not make sense to downplay the foreseeable effects on civil aviation and in the end possibly blame the air traffic control forces for it. Air traffic controllers and flight data processors are fully committed to minimizing the foreseeable delays "as much as possible. Nevertheless, it cannot be prevented that it will affect passengers and airlines "in large numbers".

As a precautionary measure, airport operator Fraport appeals to all passengers to check the status of their flight on the websites or apps of the respective airline before arriving at the airport. Further information can be found in the Fraport Travel Guide on the Internet at Frankfurt-airport.com.