A building permit for the construction of a terminal at Frankfurt airport has been approved. Terminal 3 will be built on the south side of the present structure.
Airport operator Fraport estimates that the cost of the expansion will be in the region of $2.7bn for the first phase of construction.
The terminal will be built in phases. The first is due to start next year and will add 14 million passengers a year to the airport’s capacity. It will also bring two piers with 24 terminal docking positions and 50 aircraft docking positions to the airport.Â
Fraport predicts that, without the expansion, the airport will be struggling to cope with as many as 68 million passengers a year, well beyond its design limits. Last month, 5.9m passengers used it, the most in the airport’s history.
When all phases are complete the terminal will be able to process an extra 25 million travellers.
Stefan Schulte, Fraport AG executive board chairman, said: "We’re pleased that the City of Frankfurt has now issued the building permit for our new Terminal 3."
The project still has to pass a demand assessment before it can begin construction.
Frankfurt-am-Maine Airport is Europe’s third largest behind London Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle. It handled 58 million passengers in 2013.
