Operating Hours: From 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. CEST

All is quiet at night at Frankfurt Airport – except in  justified exceptional cases.

Frankfurt Airport opens at 5:00 a.m. and closes at 11:00 p.m. local time. Between 11:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. CEST, there is a ban on night flights. This means that no scheduled take-offs or landings are allowed. During late evening and early morning, between 10:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. CEST and between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. CEST, no more than 133 aircraft movements per night are allowed at Frankfurt Airport averaged over a calendar year.

Operations at Frankfurt Airport are restricted both in daytime and at night. For instance, aircraft that are not in this approved noise class are only permitted to fly from Monday to Friday between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. CEST. They are not allowed to take off or land on weekends.

Aircraft that are forced to approach Frankfurt Airport for meteorological, technical, or other safety-related reasons or in the context of disaster relief or medical aid missions are allowed to land. More detailed information on exceptions can be found in the Delays section.

 

More peace and quiet at night

 

Along with the ban on night flights, noise respite periods help residents living near the airport to sleep undisturbed for longer. The airport regularly closes individual runways and bundles air traffic on specific routes. Scheduled at varying times, these respite periods reduce the noise footprint in areas particularly affected by aircraft noise.

In this  way, Fraport reduces the noise footprint in the vicinity of the airport.

  

A  process to reduce increase peace and quiet at night has been in place at  Fraport for operations in a  westerly direction since 2015. Alternating use of the runways ensures an extra  hour of peace and quiet in the areas concerned. One night, residents in one  area can sleep soundly from 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. CEST, and those in the  other area from 11:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. CEST – and vice versa the following  night. One night, residents in one area can sleep soundly from 10:00 p.m. to  5:00 a.m. CEST, and those in the other area from 11:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. CEST –  and vice versa the following night. As a result, our neighbors get an extra  hour of peace and quiet on top of the actual ban on night flights, which only  lasts from 11:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. CEST.

The monitoring report published by the Hessian Ministry of Economics, Energy, Transport and Housing (HMWEVW) in February 2016 confirms that the noise footprint has significantly decreased. The results were also presented to the Aircraft Noise Commission in March 2016.

Noise levels from operations in an easterly direction are further reduced by “dedicated runway operations, DROps early morning.”  

Further processes  reduce the noise footprint further.

  

After  the ban on night-time flights was  introduced for scheduled take-offs and landings between 11:00 p.m. and 5:00  a.m. CEST, “DROps early morning,”  started in June 2012, replaced the first DROps process. Since October 2015,  it has been applied in the departure area between 5:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. CEST  for operations in an easterly direction on odd calendar days.

Aircraft taking off in a northerly direction travel on the easterly  bypass route, which is also only used in DROps. Due  to the longer extended departure route, they travel over areas to the north of  the airport at much greater heights.  Consequently, in this flight stage, they are quieter than aircraft on the parallel runway system route in the  same direction.