Weeze Airport , less commonly known as ''Niederrhein Airport'', is a minor

international airport An international airport is an airport with customs and border control facilities enabling passengers to travel between countries. International airports are usually larger than domestic airports, and feature longer runways and have faciliti ...

in the

Lower Rhine region The Lower Rhine region or Niederrhein () is a region around the Lower Rhine section of the river Rhine in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, between approximately Oberhausen and Krefeld in the East and the Dutch border around Kleve in the West ...

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 ...

. It is used by

Ryanair Ryanair is an Irish Low-cost carrier#Ultra low-cost carrier, ultra low-cost airline group headquartered in Swords, County Dublin, Ireland. The parent company, Ryanair Holdings plc, includes subsidiaries Ryanair , Malta Air, Buzz (Ryanair), Buzz ...

. The airport is situated southwest of the municipality of

Weeze Weeze (, Dutch: ''Wees'') is a municipality in the Lower Rhine (Niederrhein) region, located in the northwestern part of North Rhine-Westphalia, specifically in the district of Kleve and the Düsseldorf region. The municipality comprises the to ...

() and northwest of

Kevelaer Kevelaer (; Low Rhenish: ''Käwela'') is a town in the district of Kleve, in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. It is the largest Catholic pilgrimage location within north-western Europe. Over one million Marian devotees, mostly from Germany and ...

, about southeast of the

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

city of

Nijmegen Nijmegen ( , ; Nijmeegs: ) is the largest city in the Dutch province of Gelderland and the ninth largest of the Netherlands as a whole. Located on the Waal River close to the German border, Nijmegen is one of the oldest cities in the ...

, and northwest of the German city of

Duisburg Duisburg (; , ) is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine (Lower Rhine) and the Ruhr (river), Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruh ...

History

Foundation and early years

The airport uses the facilities of the former military airbase

RAF Laarbruch Royal Air Force , more commonly known as RAF ICAO EDUL (from 1 January 1995 ETUL) was a Royal Air Force station, a military airfield, located in Germany on its border with the Netherlands. The Station's motto was . The site now operates ...

, and began operating as a civilian airport in 2003. There is also a large

fire department A fire department (North American English) or fire brigade (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), also known as a fire company, fire authority, fire district, fire and rescue, or fire service in some areas, is an organi ...

training facility on the airport grounds. Its

IATA The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is an airline trade association founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff conferences tha ...

code is ''NRN'' because of its official name ''Flughafen Niederrhein''. The airport has had several different names in its history as a civilian airport. The operators originally wanted to name it after the city of

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

, but the significant distance of to that city, which already had two closer international airports (

Düsseldorf Airport Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the seventh-largest city in Germany, with a 2022 population of 629,047. The Düsse ...

as well as

Cologne Bonn Airport Cologne Bonn Airport () is an international airport in north-western Germany. It serves the country's fourth-largest city Cologne, as well as Bonn, the former capital of West Germany. With approximately 12.4 million passengers passing through i ...

), resulted in the name being blocked by a court ruling in 2016 that such a description would be likely to mislead passengers. However, Ryanair still refers to it as "''Düsseldorf-Weeze"''. Compared to Düsseldorf, the airport is actually closer to the Dutch cities of

Venlo Venlo () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in southeastern Netherlands, close to the border with Germany. It is situated in the province of Limburg (Netherlands), ...

and

Arnhem Arnhem ( ; ; Central Dutch dialects, Ernems: ''Èrnem'') is a Cities of the Netherlands, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands, near the German border. It is the capita ...

, the German cities of

and

Essen Essen () is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dortmund, as well as ...

, and the immediate Weeze area. Weeze was served by the short-lived, Dutch low-cost carrier

V Bird V Bird (legally ''V Bird Airlines Netherlands BV'') was a low-cost airline based in the Netherlands which operated services to northern and southern Europe. Its head office was on the grounds of Maastricht Aachen Airport in Beek Beek (; ) ...

, which opened a base here and operated flights to

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

and several international destinations, from its inception in 2003 until bankruptcy in 2004. During this time, passenger numbers doubled from 200,000 to 400,000 within a year. Between 2008 and 2013, this was one of Germany's fastest-growing airports.

Development since 2010

After peaking at nearly three million passengers in 2010, Weeze Airport began experiencing a steady decline in throughput, partially due to stiff competition from neighboring airports (Eindhoven and Dortmund airports). In February 2014,

announced the cancellation of 18 routes from Weeze for the 2014 summer season, citing a lack of aircraft. In 2019, the airport faced severe financial difficulties due to a fall in passenger numbers by 30 percent over the previous year as a result of the cancellation of several Ryanair routes. This was best exemplified by the cancellation of the London-Stansted route, which was one of the most popular destinations from Weeze airport for most of the 2000s and early 2010s. After seeing passenger numbers collapse during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, Weeze Airport has seen a minor resurgence in popularity, thanks to Ryanair opening several new routes and many destinations becoming popular again.

Facilities

Weeze Airport has one passenger terminal building with restaurants, shops, and check-in facilities. The apron, which is to the west of the terminal building, features nine aircraft stands for mid-sized aircraft such as the

Boeing 737-800 The Boeing 737 Next Generation, commonly abbreviated as 737NG, or 737 Next Gen, is a twinjet, twin-engine narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Launched in 1993 as the third-generation derivative of the Boeing 737, it ha ...

. As there are no

jet bridge A jet bridge is an enclosed connector which most commonly extends from an airport terminal gate to an airplane, and in some instances from a port to a boat or ship, allowing passengers to board and disembark without heading outside and being exp ...

s due to the location of the apron to the west side of the terminal building instead in front of it, bus-boarding is used for six stands. Only three stands are close enough to the terminal to be accessed on foot.

Airlines and destinations

The following airlines operate regular scheduled and seasonal flights at Weeze Airport:

Statistics

Direct flight destinations of Weeze Airport

Ground transportation

Coach

Direct buses serve Düsseldorf Main Station up to 7 times a day, also covering early flight departures and late arrivals. The journey takes 1h 15min. ''Airexpressbus'' offered from June 2007 until spring 2017 a service between Weeze Airport and Amsterdam with stops at

Eindhoven Airport Eindhoven Airport is an international airport located west of Eindhoven, Netherlands. In terms of the number of served passengers, it is the second largest airport in the Netherlands, with 6.8 million passengers in 2023. The airport is used by ...

Utrecht Utrecht ( ; ; ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city of the Netherlands, as well as the capital and the most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht. The ...

and

's-Hertogenbosch s-Hertogenbosch (), colloquially known as Den Bosch (), is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands with a population of 160,783. It is the capital of ...

Train

Bus shuttles serve the railway stations of

and

Goch Goch (; archaic spelling: Gog) is a town in the Kleve (district), Kleve district of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, close to the border with the Netherlands, south of Kleve and southeast of Nijmegen. History Goch is at least 750 years old: th ...

on a frequent basis. Travellers for Düsseldorf Main Station will need to catch a bus or taxi to either Weeze or Kevelaer railway stations.

Buses

In addition to coaches serving Düsseldorf, Weeze airport is served by buses connecting it to most towns in the Lower Rhine region (Kleve, Emmerich, Goch), as well as Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

References

External links

Official website
* * {{authority control

Buildings and structures in Kleve (district) Airports established in 2003 2003 establishments in Germany