Ulm International Airport

Ulm International Airport is an airport located about 15 miles north of Ulm, sitting on the border of the county Heidenheim and the county Ulm in southern Germany right between the major airports of Stuttgart and Munich. It serves the greater area around Ulm, including Stuttgart and Munich and parts of Switzerland and Austria to which it is connected via express trains.
==History==
In the early 2000's authorities looked for a place for a new airport in southern Germany to solve upcoming capacity problems in Stuttgart and Munich. Located right between both airports, the city of Ulm was soon elected to host the new airport. Due to the rather hilly terrain around Ulm a location on the border to Heidenheim, a city located 20 miles north of Ulm, was chosen due to the rather smooth terrain around there. After several protests of local inhabitants against the project the government gave clearance on the airport in 2009, to be completed in December 2015. Construction of the terminal which will also be connected to "Stuttgart 21" started in 2010, the first Runway located south of the T-shaped terminal was completed in 2013 and soon after the second Runway, located on the opposite side, was completed.
The terminal was fully completed in summer of 2014 and several test runs were performed soon after the completion. After a long winter season the tarmac was completed in summer 2015, a cargo terminal was planned right next to Runway 17/35 but was cancelled in early 2016 due to the bankruptcy of the building company. 
After the first aircraft landed in Ulm, an A340-300 of Lufthansa, the opening date was selected as the 31st December 2015 but a huge storm on the 30th December caused several tiles of the tarmac to break and shutter windows of the terminal, resulting in a delay of 1 month on the opening date.
On the 31st January 2016 the airport was finally opened, an A380 of Lufthansa performed a low-pass over the airport and the biggest operator, Eurowings, performed a formation on the tarmac with their A320 and A330 airplanes, initially deploying 4 A320's, later expanded to 5, and two A330-200's at the airport.
A big focus for the airport is China, with more than 5 daily departures, as well as holiday destinations around the Mediterranean Sea and in the Caribbean.
==Terminal==
AEI has one big terminal, which is divided into three parts:
Terminal A: Mainly serves airlines that are not a member of any airline alliance.
Terminal B: Mainly oneworld and Skyteam airlines.
Terminal C: Star Alliance and low-cost/holiday airlines.
About half of the Gates don't have jet bridges, so passengers need to be bussed to their plane.
==Airlines and Destinations==
===Passenger===
===Cargo===
==Accidents and Incidents==
On the 23rd August 2016 a 737-800 of KLM performing a flight from Amsterdam to Athens made an emergency landing in Ulm after an engine flamed out. One elderly passenger suffered a heart attack after the captain's announcement of the emergency landing but he later recovered in a hospital.
On the morning of the 9th March 2017 the temporary grounding of Tunisair over security measurements caused a fight between around 50 upset passengers from the morning flight to Tunis and airport security officers and policemen. As a security officer tried to calm down a Tunisian diplomat, passengers stranded with him and attacked the security officers. The police was called and ended the fight with pepper spray and fired warning shots as passengers breached through security and caused a complete shutdown of all operations. After 30 minutes the police had arrested 58 passengers, a total of 48 people were injured, 22 Tunisair-passengers, 13 policemen, 10 security officers and three passengers from other flights were transported to nearby hospitals. The airport resumed operations 45 minuted after the security breach and Tunisair apologized for the incident and announced to pay all costs.
On 14th June a Middle East Airlines A330 has landed hard on Ulm's runway 35 causing the front gear to fracture and eventually break. The A330 slided over the runway for about 300 more meters (900 feet) and came to a complete stop on its nose. During the following evacuation 6 people were injured and taken to a hospital. The airport was closed for 15 minutes, runway 17/35 was reopened two days after the incident. The airplane was repaired in Ulm and returned to service on 2nd July 2016.
Category:Airports in Europe