FRA Lifts Night Ban

     Lufthansa Cargo is lifting all over the place including an investment ban imposed in March 2007 at its home base Frankfurt/Main.
     That’s great news for shippers because the carrier says it will get to work making much needed improvement in its major air cargo hub at Fraport that opened in 1982.
     LH Cargo's swing of opinion is a result of the decision by the state government of Hesse to scotch plans of a total night flight stop.
     Politicians had proclaimed the curfew earlier as a consequence of allowing Frankfurt owner Fraport to build a fourth runway.
     Last Tuesday however, the previous announcement regarding the future night flight curfew was partially withdrawn by Hesse's minister of economic affairs, Alois Rhiel, allowing 'preferred home carriers' up to 17 flights each night between midnight and 5 am.
     LH Cargo is the airline that will benefit most from this decision.
     "Not to impose a total night flight stop is a very positive signal that secures our future," LH Cargo spokesman Nils Haupt told FlyingTypers:
     "We now have to thoroughly study the more than 2,500 pages of the state government's decision.
     But if things turn out as announced and we can go on flying at night after the opening of the new runway in 2011 we will heavily invest in our home base, Frankfurt."
     This includes the complete renovation of the Lufthansa Cargo Center (LCC) that was created 26 years ago in 1982 on the northern part of the airport.
     A planned Service Center in the Cargo City South will go ahead as well.
     "Some of our customers for whom we provide handling services are located in the southern part of the airport," Haupt said.
     According to Nils, more than 100 million euros will be invested to enhance the cargo facilities at Frankfurt in the months to come.
     Elsewhere reports of a possible relocation of Lufthansa Cargo's central Asian hub Astana in Kazakhstan to the Russian city of Krasnoyarsk is still awaiting a decision, FT learned.
     However, a spokesperson at Berlin's Ministry of Transport stated that the discussions between the German and
Russian authorities for securing LH Cargo the right to use Siberian airspace on their flights between Europe and Fareast were "under good way".
     "We will reach a settlement prior to the deadline of February 29," set by Moscow she stated.
     This seems to be a strong indication that LH Cargo will move from Astana to Krasnoyarsk as demanded by the Russians depending on their promise to modernize and enhance the infrastructure at Krasnoyarsk.
     Observers believe that the building up of that base will take at least two years.
Heiner Siegmund