Regional Directorate rejects new report on airport expansion: citizens’ initiative made clear in reply letter

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“A reassessment of the air traffic forecast and the supplementary statements is not necessary,” wrote the Saxony Regional Directorate on 4 June in a terse reply to a demand from the citizens’ initiative “Against the New Flight Path”, to reopen the planning approval procedure for the project “Expansion of Leipzig/Halle Airport, South Runway with Apron”, on the grounds that the traffic figures on which it is based simply do not hold water. And they certainly were not produced independently. After all, why expand an airport if increased air traffic cannot be expected at all?

But the Saxony State Directorate is a public authority. And it simply adopts a bureaucratic stance when it wishes to dismiss such a citizens’ concern as invalid.

It sounds something like this: ‘When taking traffic forecasts into account, it is crucial that these were drawn up at the time the planning approval decision was issued, based on a scientifically recognised forecasting methodology, and that they arrive at plausible results. With regard to the forecasts by Intraplan Consult GmbH concerning the proposed expansion of Leipzig/Halle, the State Directorate has affirmed that these requirements were met with regard to air freight volumes; with regard to passenger volumes (which the planned expansion project is not, however, designed to accommodate), it has confirmed the methodological approach but has expressly rejected the plausibility of the results.”

This tone went down very badly with the citizens’ initiative. The reply from Matthias Zimmermann, press spokesperson for the citizens’ initiative ‘Against the New Flight Path’, was correspondingly blunt. After all, the fact that the State Directorate declared part of the jumble of forecast data to be reliable, but not the other part, naturally raises doubts as to whether the expansion planners have a realistic basis for their planning at all, or are simply basing their plans on hot air.

An independent expert report? We don’t need one

What’s more, the “figures” all date from 2019 – that is, before the Covid-19 pandemic. And earlier forecasts by Intraplan Consult GmbH had even been deemed too optimistic by the State Directorate itself. On top of that, according to Zimmermann, Intraplan had been commissioned directly by the airport. That is precisely why an independent report on traffic development would have been absolutely essential.

But the State Directorate simply did not commission one. How, then, can it claim to have verified the plausibility of the figures? And Zimmermann knows the subject matter well and drives this point home to the State Directorate in his reply: “Incidentally, the lack of independence in the reports commissioned in this way is also explicitly criticised by the State Audit Office, using the IW Consult study as an example,” says Zimmermann.

“Against this background, the State Directorate’s inaction is not only incomprehensible but also professionally indefensible. The authority failed to draw the necessary conclusions for the procedure, despite the lack of neutrality and despite known risks of overestimation.”

For it is not only passenger numbers at Leipzig/Halle Airport that are stagnating; since 2019, there have also been signs of stagnation in freight volumes. Zimmermann simply finds it implausible that the State Directorate accepted the forecast for freight volumes, even though – according to Zimmermann – it is based “on identical macroeconomic indicators”. Above all, he feels there is a lack of consideration of a possible worst-case scenario. What happens if none of the promised figures materialise?

Make a few small savings here and there?

A question that is already pressing. In its latest report, the Saxon Court of Auditors has strongly criticised Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG’s persistently negative balance sheet.

And although Saxony’s Finance Minister Christian Piwarz, deputy chairman of the airport company’s supervisory board, repeatedly expresses optimism and lavishes praise on MFAG’s consolidation efforts, these do not seem to be leading to the company getting out of the red at all. Meanwhile, there are rumours of a new concept paper from MFAG examining further refurbishments in Dresden and Leipzig/Halle.

The Court of Auditors’ investigation has, of course, shown that it is as yet impossible to predict whether the two Saxon airports will manage to survive until 2030 without the state’s subsidies, which run into the millions. Against this backdrop, the expansion plans, costing at least 500 million euros, are nothing short of reckless.

Or, in Zimmermann’s own words from his reply to the State Directorate: “Given the airport companies’ accumulated losses to date, such projections of future losses should be accorded particular significance.”