Operating hours of airfields and airports

A car can be parked somewhere in the street on in your own driveway at any hour of the day. Although you can fly your own aircraft also at any hour of the day not every airfield or airport is open for your business. In Germany many airports are closed over night. Some pilots joke that the operator puts the runway away over night.

Following I’m trying to gather information about operating hours for airports and airfields and figure out a pattern, if possible. That should indicate how likely it is that I will be able to leave early or return late. I list what I find ordered by country. The selection is based on which countries are of interest to me as of the moment.

Austria

Belgium

Denmark

Germany

Official information about airports and airfields in Germany is provided by Deutsche Flugsicherung (ATC Germany) in a publication called AIP, which is available in paper and electronic form as a subscription and for a fee. There is one for VFR and another for IFR flights.

German airfields and airports have published operating hours. Some can be used outside those hours on request. There is usually a fee involved, which increases the further outside the regular operating hours the takeoff or landing should happen. Browsing around I’ve seen fees of about 70 € for every hour after or before the regular operating times. Landing on an administratively closed airport will get you in trouble and is a bad idea unless in an emergency.

Mannheim

As I’ve started to use Mannheim as origin for a few sample trip, let’s have a look at the operating hours and other conditions for Mannheim. At the Moment I don’t have a valid AIP sheet for Mannheim, so I take the operating hours the airport’s website. They are 06:00 to 21:00 and on the weekend including official holidays 08:00 to 20:00. Outside these hours the airport is available on request (24H PPR = prior permission required).

For the purpose of business travel that isn’t so bad. Case 1 had us leaving by 7:30, case 2 by 6:30 and case 3 by 05:45. But as I was pointing out in case 3, the trip to London, I wouldn’t want to get up that early and then return the same day. Instead I would leave late on the day before.

Meschede-Schüren

Meschede-Schüren is a smaller airfield, although with a hard surface runway, with much more restrictive operating hours. According to their website it is available Tuesday-Sunday from 10:00 to 20:00. During the months of December to February you can use it only on request (PPR) during weekdays.

Mondays this airfield is closed :-) If our destination is Meschede-Schüren, we should probably call them ahead of time and make reservations for our arrival.

Luxemburg

Netherlands

Switzerland