Frankfurt Flight Frustration / Future Flight

before the reduced operational hours,
Frankfurt airport boasted as many as
50 million passengers daily.

All week, we've been anticipating the arrival of our friends and regional coordinators, the Nachtigall's.  They were flying from Berlin to Frankfurt tonight, and then overnight into Cairo, set to arrive in the early morning hours at our home.

But, while on the plane, the Nachtigall's learned something new in Frankfurt firsthand--there's a ban/curfew on flights after 2300 hours.  So, while they are taxing into position to takeoff, the tower calls and says basically, "you missed the curfew--come back to the gate"!

We have yet to hear how Lufthansa will accommodate our friends, or when they will now arrive for what is an official visit, as well as a time of vacation for their family and ours.

"So what's with the curfew," you ask?

We asked too, and thanks to a little googling, found a couple of articles to help us learn why Frankfurt has such crazy rules...

Apparently, the residents of Frankfurt have been in quite a foul mood when it comes to air traffic noise; so much so that it was a big election platform in the last mayoral election, and the new mayor may have been elected on the promise of instituting such a curfew on these annoying, late night flights.

But while the residents sleep peacefully, there's bound to be fallout, particularly financial.

Lufthansa airlines, the airline affected tonight, has had disastrous customer service issues as a result -- as many as 14,000 travelers have had to return to the gate in the first 8 months of the curfew, and had to be receive complimentary hotel accommodations or slept in the airport.  Many of which who were flying to Cape Town, South Africa (likely leaving at that time to arrive for the start of business the next day).  Frankfurt had been Lufthansa's major hub for this flight, but no longer--Lufthansa has officially moved these flights to nearby Munich.

Obviously, this affects more flights than just the Cape Town travelers.  Most airlines have difficulty operating in the black as it is--imagine having to add this many hotel bills and breakfast cheques?  How long before Lufthansa and other airlines evaluate whether or not to move all their flights, not just their night flights?

Then, Frankfurt may not only get peaceful skies at night, but they may also get them all day long, along with long unemployment lines.


In other airline news...

Richard Branson, billionaire-extraordinaire, says his Virgin-Galactic group will launch their first private passengers into space by December 2013, including he and his children.  We blogged about this approaching epic milestone on May 27 --here's a new CNN video interview with one of Branson's smart business guys talking about more about it...



The quote on the side of this CNN article from Branson is, "The initial flights will be sub-orbital, which will give people a taste of space... Maybe one day hotels in space."


Where are our forward-thinking, big dreaming, risk-taking leaders in the Church?
Oh, they may be stuck in Frankfurt :(