The original Munich [MUC] airport shut on May 16th 1992, and the new (current) one opened up on May 17th, so we thought we would pay a little homage to the old and also take a look at how the current Munich airport is doing now.
Goodbye Old Munich
The original airport was located in Trudering-Riem in Bavaria and opened in 1939, enabling the famous Berlin-Munich-Venice-Rome Alpine route to take off (excuse the pun).
In fact, the airport replaced an airport itself – the airfield at Oberwiesenfeld (now better known as being the Olympic Village).
It survived most of the WWII, but was decimated just months before the war ended in 1945, with over 70 percent destroyed.
Once rebuilt, the airport re-opened again in 1948 becoming the first to open for civil aviation in Germany. It eventually grew to have two runways (07L/25R and 07R/25L), the longest being 2,804m.
The airport became a pioneering centre for meteorology in 1948, connected to New York in 1951, saw Lufthansa re-start regular services, and was one of the earlier airports to welcome the Sud Aviation Caravelle.
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Expansion continued through the sixties, but by the eighties, congestion was becoming a problem. By 1991 passenger numbers were up to 12million and the airport was struggling to accommodate the increasing passenger demand, as well as growing sizes of aircraft.
Operations were finally shifted over on on May 16/17th 1992 to the ‘new’ Munich Franz Jozef Strauss Airport.
Hello New Munich
Munich Franz Jozef Strauss International Airport officially opened on May 17th 1992, and is the second busiest airport in Germany after Frankfurt (FRA) and the 15th busiest airport worldwide in terms of International passenger traffic.
It boasts two runways (08L/26R and 08R/26L), both 4000m in length, a helipad, and handles over 285,000 aircraft movements a year.
There is also a Visitors Park at the airport where you can watch aircraft heading into land and see some old museum pieces, or experience an “authentic” German market at Christmas!
The airport is the only European airport to have earned a 5 star rating (and only one of seven worldwide).
This is mostly down to its ease of transferring, stress free experience and innovations to support the passenger journey – including new security passport and security services which were implemented in 2022 for non-Schengen countries.
Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Jubiläum, Flughafen München
 airport shut down on this day May 16 1992. We pay homage to the old airport and look at how the new airport is faring){kind=link}