Departure
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MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Erfurt-Weimar Airport is Thuringia's principal airport, sited a few miles west of Erfurt near Bindersleben, with a single long hard-surfaced runway and full instrument approach capability. Built on the foundations of a 1935 Luftwaffe airfield, it today handles seasonal leisure charter traffic to Mediterranean and other European holiday destinations under a full air traffic control service.
Erfurt-Weimar Airport (ICAO EDDE, IATA ERF) serves the city of Erfurt, capital of the German state of Thuringia, and the nearby cultural city of Weimar. It is operated by Flughafen Erfurt GmbH and is used mainly for seasonal charter flights to European leisure destinations rather than scheduled domestic or long-haul services. For a visiting sim pilot it offers a substantial single-runway operation with ILS approaches, full radar and tower services, and a good deal of aviation history bound up in its Luftwaffe and Cold War past.
The airport lies about 5 km west of Erfurt city centre, near the district of Bindersleben, and is accessible from the surrounding area via the A71 motorway at the Erfurt-Bindersleben exit. Approach control in the region is provided by Munich Radar, indicating that Erfurt-Weimar sits within controlled airspace served from a wider regional approach sector, with Langen Information providing flight information service outside the immediate airport environment.
The airport has a single physical runway, 09/27, of hard surface construction and lit for night operations, equipped with ILS on both directions. The published lengths are 8,508 ft for runway 09 and 7,819 ft for runway 27, reflecting differing declared distances between the two thresholds. Field elevation is 1,017 ft.
Erfurt-Weimar is served by an AFIS-style information and control setup. Erfurt Tower (Turm) operates on 121.155 MHz, with Erfurt Ground (Rollkontrolle) on 121.755 MHz and an apron frequency (RMP) on 121.9 MHz. The airport's own ATIS broadcasts on 133.455 MHz. Approach service is provided by Munich Radar on 132.3 MHz, and Langen Information provides flight information on 119.825 MHz. The field is equipped with ILS on both runway directions.
The origins of aviation at Erfurt lie in the mid-1920s, when an airfield was built at Roter Berg north of the city; this was taken over by the Luftwaffe at the start of the Second World War in 1939, ending civil passenger traffic there, and the site was eventually closed in 1974 for housing development. The foundations of today's Erfurt-Weimar Airport were laid in 1935, when the Luftwaffe built a new air base west of the city near Bindersleben. Following the end of the war in 1945, the Red Army took over the base, stationing an alert unit equipped with MiG-15 fighters there during the 1950s. Around 1957 the airfield passed to East German authorities, who extended it and built a 2,000 metre concrete runway. It was subsequently used by East German Lufthansa and later Interflug for domestic flights until these ceased in 1980, along with limited services to socialist-bloc destinations such as Budapest, and it also served as a base for Interflug's agricultural aviation operations with the Erfurt district squadron. After German reunification the airport was expanded further and the runway extended to 2,600 metres. The airport was renamed from Erfurt Airport to Erfurt-Weimar Airport in 2011, a marketing decision intended to draw on Weimar's historic reputation.
Erfurt-Weimar Airport today is used mainly for seasonal charter flights to European leisure destinations, including routes to Antalya, Hurghada, Palma de Mallorca, Heraklion, Rhodes and Burgas operated by a number of charter and leisure carriers. There are no scheduled domestic flights, the last route to Munich having ended by March 2012, as improved high-speed rail links have made short-haul domestic air travel largely redundant. The airport comprises one passenger terminal, with two aircraft parking positions and four boarding gates, plus a separate business terminal, along with bus-boarding stands on the apron for mid-sized aircraft.
