Tuesday, January 12, 2016

The Hahn Story

Local news in the region (the Rhine Valley) carried a three-line piece today.....more development on the Hahn Airport sale.

For those who aren't familiar with Hahn.....it was originally a US Air Force installation in central Germany.....about forty miles west of Mainz (in the nowhere, which is what most would describe the region).

Most Air Force people who spent time there would say that it was one of those crazy weather places where October would end, and it'd be either fog, snow, or ice....until the end of March.

The Germans received the base in the early 1990s and worked up a commercial re-use situation.  Millions were poured into it, and it did go into a phase where passengers and cargo traffic were popular.

The problem with Hahn....was that it was virtually limited with Ryan Airways (the discount airline), and they could never get kind of growth on profits for the airport.

The state of Rheinland-Pflaz owns approximately 82-percent and the state of Hessen (across the river) owns the remaining 18-percent.

The sale of the airport?  It's come down....says the regional news....to three Asian groups.  Each has some view of the future ahead and how they'd manage the airport.   No one....absolutely no one.....says the vision of the three groups or how this might play out in five years.

My humble guess is that China business enterprises have some plan to bring more Chinese tourists into Germany, and Hahn might play into some passenger and cargo idea.....with more Chinese goods being delivered.

The one selling point of Hahn is that the regional community around the airport is small and wouldn't have issues with evening flights.....which is the major issue of Frankfurt's airport (roughly a 35-min drive away).

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