Memmingen Airport continues to grow. The performance assessment for 2022, which was presented at today’s press conference at the airport, shows a significant increase in passenger numbers, destinations, employees and the annual result. Further investments are to be made in the expansion of the infrastructure over the next few years.“2022 was the year of recovery,” says Gerhard Pfeifer, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Flughafen Memmingen GmbH. “And in more ways than one!” While the first quarter was still dominated by the knock-on effects of the pandemic, passengers’ desire to travel quickly returned afterwards. At the same time, the airlines expanded their offers once more. They offered new destinations, increased flight frequencies on popular routes and they deployed larger aircraft. The consequences can be read in the assessment of performance for the year: with 1,991,654 million passengers, the 2019 record was exceeded by 268,885 passengers or almost 16 per cent. A year-on-year increase of 103 per cent underlines the rapid pace of recovery. For the current year, those responsible expect around 2.4 million passengers. “The current development shows that we are not being too optimistic here in our planning,” emphasised Airport Managing Director, Ralf Schmid.More passengers and even more flights also meant more revenue in 2022: while this still stood at EUR 13.491 million in 2021, it rose to EUR 21.810 million last year. A net profit of EUR 2.418 million was recorded in the books at the end of the year.“The fact that we have come through the Coronavirus crisis so well and quickly returned to growth is a great achievement by our entire team, and we would like to take this opportunity to thank them once again,” emphasised the Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Gerhard Pfeifer. The number of employees has increased continuously in recent years. The airport company currently employs 139 women and men (2022: 129, 2021: 115). In addition, there are a further 130 colleagues at the subsidiary ALLgate, which is responsible for passenger and aircraft handling.“Our growth trajectory is not only a confirmation of our work in recent years,” says Managing Director, Ralf Schmid; “it also represents an obligation,” because our infrastructure must continue to keep pace with the increasing number of passengers. To this end, further expansion of the existing terminal and the construction of a multi-storey car park are envisaged. The apron and taxiways for aircraft are to be enlarged. In order to further improve the technical and operating conditions for flying even in difficult weather conditions, work on the approval processes for upgrading the instrument landing system (ILS) from CAT I to CAT III is being stepped up. The general aviation area in the southern section is also to be expanded. “Demand is also very high in this area,” explains Schmid.The airport has also set itself the goal of becoming climate-neutral by 2030. This is why the existing energy centre was also recently renovated. A new CHP unit has an electrical output of 1.5 MW and was equipped with two exhaust gas heat exchangers. The new energy centre saves around 650,000 cubic metres of natural gas per year, and reduces the airport’s CO2 emissions by around 1,600 tonnes per year. There are also plans to build a photovoltaic system and a hydrogen refuelling station. Synthetic fuels (e-fuels) are also to be offered for aircraft this summer.