Airbus Hamburg-Finkenwerder, also known as Hamburg Finkenwerder Airport , is an aircraft

manufacturing plant A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an Industry (manufacturing), industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with Outline of industrial machinery, machinery, where workers manufacturing, manufac ...

and associated private

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial Aviation, air transport. They usually consist of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surf ...

in the

Finkenwerder Finkenwerder (; Low German: ''Finkwarder'', ''Finkenwarder'' or ''- wärder''; German: ''Finkeninsel''; translation: Island of finches) is a quarter of Hamburg, Germany in the borough Hamburg-Mitte. It is the location of the Hamburg Airbus plant ...

quarter of southwest

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. The airport is an integral part of the

Airbus Airbus SE ( ; ; ; ) is a Pan-European aerospace corporation. The company's primary business is the design and manufacturing of commercial aircraft but it also has separate Airbus Defence and Space, defence and space and Airbus Helicopters, he ...

-owned plant, and is exclusively used by that company for corporate, freight, test, and delivery flights with the final assembly of the

A320 family The Airbus A320 family is a series of narrow-body airliners developed and produced by Airbus. The A320 was launched in March 1984, Maiden flight, first flew on 22 February 1987, and was introduced in April 1988 by Air France. The first membe ...

being conducted here.

History

In 1933, the

Blohm & Voss Blohm+Voss (B+V), also written historically as Blohm & Voss, Blohm und Voß etc., is a German shipbuilding and engineering company. Founded in Hamburg in 1877 to specialise in steel-hulled ships, its most famous product was the World War II battle ...

shipbuilding company in

decided to diversify into aircraft manufacture, believing that there would soon be a market for all-metal, long-range

flying boat A flying boat is a type of seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in having a fuselage that is purpose-designed for flotation, while floatplanes rely on fuselage-mounted floats for buoyancy. Though ...

s, especially with the German state airline

Deutsche Luft Hansa ''Deutsche Luft Hansa A.G.'' (from 1933 styled as ''Deutsche Lufthansa'' and also known as ''Luft Hansa'', ''Lufthansa'', or DLH) was a German airline. It served as flag carrier of the country during the later years of the Weimar Republic and t ...

. It also felt that its experience with all-metal marine construction would prove an advantage. In order to do this, it created the

Hamburger Flugzeugbau ''Hamburger Flugzeugbau'' (HFB) was an aircraft manufacturer, located primarily in the Finkenwerder quarter of Hamburg, Germany. Established in 1933 as an offshoot of Blohm+Voss, Blohm & Voss shipbuilders, it later became an operating division wit ...

(HFB) as a

subsidiary company A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company (law), company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidia ...

. Initially manufacturing was carried out at the Blohm & Voss shipbuilding works, with an inland airfield and final assembly building for landplanes at

Wenzendorf Aircraft Factory Wenzendorf is a municipality in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is also the name of the chief village of the municipality. The area is known mainly for the airfield near the village, where the Hamburger Flugzeugbau, the aircraft manufacturing arm of ...

.Amtmann, Hans; "Blohm und Voss Remembered" (Part 1), ''Aeroplane Monthly'', February 1998, pp. 22–27Pohlmann, Hermann; Chronik Eines Flugzeugwerkes 1932-1945. B&V - Blohm & Voss Hamburg - HFB Hamburger Flugzeugbau'' (in German). Motor Buch Verlag, 1979 Gunston, Bill; ''World Encyclopedia of Aero manufacturers'', 2nd edition, Sutton, 2005. In 1937, the HFB was reconstituted as a operating division of Blohm & Voss rather than as a separate company, and the Finkenwerder aircraft works and associated airfield were established in 1939 by this division. The works were substantially damaged during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, and when manufacturing was revived there, using the previous HFB company identity, the facilities began a long series of progressive expansions and modernizations. The foundations of the Fink II submarine pen are still extant, just east of the north end of the runway. During the

Berlin Airlift The Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949) was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, roa ...

, detachments from both No. 201 Squadron RAF and

No. 230 Squadron RAF Number 230 Squadron Royal Air Force is a Royal Air Force (RAF) flying squadron, currently based at Medicina Lines in Brunei Darussalam, part of British Forces Brunei. The squadron was previously part of Royal Air Force Germany (RAFG), opera ...

flew

Short Sunderland The Short S.25 Sunderland is a British flying boat Maritime patrol aircraft, patrol bomber, developed and constructed by Short Brothers for the Royal Air Force (RAF). The aircraft took its service name from the town (latterly, city) and port of ...

V's. In 1964, both the

HFB 320 Hansa Jet The HFB 320 Hansa Jet is a twin-engine, ten-seat business jet that was designed and produced by German aircraft manufacturer Hamburger Flugzeugbau between 1964 and 1973. The most recognisable and unconventional feature of the aircraft is its fo ...

and the third prototype

Transall C-160 The Transall C-160 is a military transport aircraft, produced as a joint venture between France and Germany. "Transall" is a German abbreviation of the manufacturing consortium ''Transporter Allianz'', comprising the companies of Messerschmitt- ...

made their first flights from the airport. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, HFB and its Finkenwerder facility eventually became part of

. Between April 2006 and July 2007, the runway was extended at the southern end, increasing its length from 2,684 m to 3,183 m, in order to accommodate the then planned freight version of the

Airbus A380 The Airbus A380 is a very large wide-body airliner, developed and produced by Airbus until 2021. It is the world's largest passenger airliner and the only full-length double-deck jet airliner. Airbus studies started in 1988, and the pr ...

. Airbus offers factory tours. There is also a visitor terrace, overlooking the runway, at .

Manufacturing

The Airbus site at

is the main operations centre for Airbus Operations GmbH and employs around 15,000 people. The Hamburg factory manufactures and equips the forward and rear fuselage sections of the

A330 The Airbus A330 is a wide-body airliner developed and produced by Airbus. Airbus began developing larger A300 derivatives in the mid–1970s, giving rise to the A330 twinjet as well as the Airbus A340 quadjet, and launched both designs alon ...

and

A350 XWB The Airbus A350 is a long-range, wide-body twin-engine airliner developed and produced by Airbus. The initial A350 design proposed in 2004, in response to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, would have been a development of the Airbus A330 with co ...

. Final assembly is carried out for all models of the

, plus fitting-out of their cabin interiors and painting for final delivery. A large global spares centre is also maintained, holding some 120,000 parts, as well as A320 series maintenance-training facilities. The airport forms an integral part of these manufacturing operations.

Airlines and destinations

There are no public scheduled services at Finkenwerder. The airport handles around 10 to 15 aircraft movements per day. Most are transfer, freight, and test flights for Airbus manufacturing. The twice-daily corporate shuttle service to the Airbus plant in

Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...

has been operated by the Spanish operator

Volotea Volotea () is a Spanish low-cost airline registered in Castrillón and headquartered in Barcelona. History Foundation and early years Volotea was established by Alaeo S.L. from Barcelona, a company created by former Vueling founders, Carlo ...

since 4 November 2019 on a five-year contract. Previously the service was operated by

Germania Germania ( ; ), also more specifically called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman provinces of Germania Inferior and Germania Superio ...

and

PrivatAir Privatair SA was a Swiss airline headquartered in Meyrin, which operated business jets as well as scheduled services on behalf of major airlines. In addition the company operated crew and pilot training facilities. PrivatAir SA was a registered ...

Incidents and accidents

* In 1967 the pilot of a

Spantax Spantax S.A. was a Spanish leisure airline headquartered in Madrid that operated from 6 October 1959 to 29 March 1988. Spantax was one of the first Spanish airlines to operate tourist charter flights between European and North American cities and ...

Convair 990 Coronado The Convair 990 Coronado is a retired American narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body four-engined jet airliner produced between 1961 and 1963 by the Convair division of American company General Dynamics. It was a stretched version of its earlier Co ...

mistook the 1360 m long runway of Finkenwerder for the 3000 m long runway of

Hamburg Airport Hamburg Airport () , is a major international airport in Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany. Since November 2016 the airport has been named after the former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt. It is located north of the city centre in t ...

in Fuhlsbüttel, and only just brought the aircraft to a stop before the end of the runway.

References

Citations

Bibliography

External links

* * {{authority control Aircraft assembly plants in Germany Finki Buildings and structures in Hamburg-Mitte 1939 establishments in Germany Airbus