Departure
95%
vs 95%
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Zweibrücken Airport (EDRZ) lies in Rhineland-Palatinate close to the French border, on the site of a former air base that later grew into a busy scheduled and charter airport before scheduled services ended in 2014. Today it operates purely for general aviation, offering a substantial paved runway that is unusually long for a field of its current size, a legacy of its military and airline past.
Zweibrücken Airport serves the town of Zweibrücken in Rhineland-Palatinate and is one of two airports in the state alongside Frankfurt-Hahn. It began life as a military air base and was converted for civil use in the 1990s, later handling substantial scheduled and charter traffic before commercial operations ceased in 2014. It is now a general aviation field, and its long, ex-military runway makes it an interesting and unusually spacious destination for light aircraft pilots exploring the region.
The airfield sits near the French border in western Rhineland-Palatinate. Its nearest comparable neighbour is Saarbrücken Airport, roughly 40 km away, which absorbed much of Zweibrücken's former scheduled traffic after 2014. Road access is via the A8 motorway (exit Contwig, Flughafen, Bitche) or the French L700 highway, reflecting the field's proximity to the France-Germany frontier.
Zweibrücken has a single physical runway, 03/21, oriented roughly north-northeast to south-southwest. Runway 03 is 7,866 ft long and runway 21 is 8,770 ft long; both are hard-surfaced and lit. There is no ILS at the field.
Pilots should expect to work Zweibrücken Information on FIS at 123.83 MHz, with AFIS coverage also listed on 123.525 MHz as Langen Information. Langen Radar is available on 129.675 MHz for wider radar service in the area.
Zweibrücken Airport occupies the site of the former Zweibrücken Air Base, which closed in 1991 following the end of Operation Desert Storm. The site was reopened as a converted commercial airport on 1 September 1994. Germanwings began twice-daily service to Berlin Schönefeld in 2006, ending it in 2011 due to airport taxes, while Ryanair briefly served London Stansted from 2008 to 2009. Through the early 2010s the airport handled seasonal charter traffic to Turkish and Mediterranean destinations, with carriers including Sky Airlines, Atlasjet, Freebird Airlines, Air Berlin, TUIfly, Germania and Pegasus Airlines operating routes to places such as Antalya, Istanbul, Ankara and Palma de Mallorca; TUIfly at one point operated eight routes from Zweibrücken, making it one of its focus cities. In July 2014 the European Commission ruled that up to 56 million euros of subsidies paid to the airport were illegal and had to be repaid, prompting Zweibrücken Airport to file for bankruptcy on 24 July 2014. TUIfly initially supported continued operations through its summer schedule but announced closure of its Zweibrücken base from 8 November 2014, relocating routes such as Palma de Mallorca and Gran Canaria to nearby Saarbrücken. The last scheduled flight, to Fuerteventura, departed on 3 November 2014, ending the airport's period as a scheduled and charter passenger hub.
Since the end of scheduled operations in November 2014, Zweibrücken Airport has functioned solely as a general aviation field. It retains a small terminal building with three aircraft stands, though without jet bridges; walk-boarding was used when larger aircraft such as Boeing 737s and Airbus A320s operated there in its commercial era. The airport's substantial ex-military runway remains available for light aircraft and general aviation traffic.
