Transform Your Flight Sim Experience
with In-Depth Tracking & Analysis
Track every flight, analyse your performance,
and master your flying skills with My FS Flights
Get 10 flights free every month!
Tracked and analysed flights over miles
Düsseldorf Airport (EDDL/DUS) is the principal international gateway for the Rhine-Ruhr conurbation, sited at Düsseldorf-Lohausen a few kilometres north of the city centre. It is Germany's fourth-busiest airport, a hub for Eurowings, and offers two well-equipped instrument runways capable of handling everything from light aircraft to the Airbus A380, making it a substantial and busy destination for any simulator pilot flying into the region.
Düsseldorf Airport serves the city of Düsseldorf and the wider Rhine-Ruhr area, the largest metropolitan region in Germany. Operated by Flughafen Düsseldorf GmbH and jointly owned by the city of Düsseldorf and private airport-holding interests, it is a hub for Eurowings and a focus city for several other carriers including Condor, Corendon Airlines, SunExpress and TUI fly Deutschland. For a simulator pilot it offers the challenge and interest of a major European hub, with parallel instrument runways, dense traffic and full radar and tower services.
The airport sits in the Düsseldorf-Lohausen district, about 7 kilometres north of downtown Düsseldorf, roughly 30 kilometres southwest of Essen and about 15 kilometres south of Duisburg, placing it firmly within the densely populated and busy Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan area. It lies under the area of Langen Radar and receives approach and director services locally before hand-off to en-route control.
Düsseldorf has two parallel hard-surfaced runways, both lit and equipped with ILS. The northern pair, 05R/23L, is 8,843 ft in the 05R direction and 8,838 ft in the 23L direction. The southern pair, 05L/23R, measures 7,876 ft as 05L and 7,895 ft as 23R. Field elevation is 125 ft.
Düsseldorf Tower (Turm) operates on 118.305 MHz, with Ground (Rollkontrolle) on 121.905 MHz. Clearance Delivery is available on 121.775 MHz and 121.78 MHz, and Approach/Director works on 128.65 MHz. The Düsseldorf ATIS broadcasts on 123.78 MHz, and a de-icing frequency of 135.225 MHz is also published. Both runways carry ILS approaches.
The current airport opened on 19 April 1927 following two years of construction, and its first international route was launched by SABENA in 1929 linking Brussels, Antwerp, Düsseldorf and Hamburg. Civil flying ceased in September 1939 as the airfield passed to military use during the Second World War, before reopening for civil traffic in 1948 under British administration, when British European Airways began the first postwar international flights to London. The airport came under state-owned operating company control from 1950. Lufthansa began Düsseldorf-Frankfurt-Munich services on 1 April 1955, a route still flown today, and in 1959 the airport received its first scheduled jet aircraft on a Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen-Khartoum service. LTU moved its home base to Düsseldorf from Cologne Bonn in 1961, the year the airport first handled more than a million passengers. The main runway was lengthened to 3,000 metres in 1969 alongside construction of a new second terminal, which opened in 1973; further terminal buildings followed in 1977 and 1986. On 11 April 1996 the Düsseldorf Airport fire, the worst structural airport fire recorded worldwide, broke out during welding work on an elevated roadway above the Terminal A arrivals area; poor structural fire protection allowed fire and smoke to spread rapidly, killing seventeen people and destroying large parts of the passenger areas. Reconstruction saw passengers housed in temporary tents, Terminal C redeveloped with lightweight halls in 1997, and the rebuilt Terminal A reopened in 1998, when the airport was renamed Düsseldorf International.
Düsseldorf remains Germany's fourth-busiest airport, handling over 20 million passengers in 2024 and serving destinations across almost every European country as well as points in Africa, the Middle East and North America. It operates as a hub for Eurowings and hosts operating bases for Condor, Corendon Airlines, SunExpress and TUI fly Deutschland, with three passenger terminals and infrastructure able to accommodate wide-body aircraft up to the Airbus A380.
