Janina Steinkrüger, Mainz’s Commissioner for the Environment and Mobility, comments on the upcoming opening of the controversial Terminal 3 at Frankfurt Airport: “The opening of Terminal 3 remains a slap in the face for the noise-plagued residents of the Rhine-Main region. From the very beginning, the terminal was built to increase flight capacity. Instead of the predicted growth, the terminal—which is based on strict growth targets—continues to see stagnant flight numbers. To cover up these miscalculations by management, they have in the past relied on low-cost carriers or are now expanding the cargo hub. 

The fact remains: for years, the Rhein-Main region has been clearly too noisy, and the limit of tolerable flight movements has long since been reached. 

For a decade, we have been hearing the same old refrain from airport operators about a sharp rise in passenger and flight movements in the future. Capacity lags massively behind these figures and did not even begin to reflect the necessity of the terminal construction, neither in 2014 at the groundbreaking nor in 2026 at the terminal’s opening. Consequently, the concept of “handling quality” had to be invoked later as an argument and a justification for the terminal construction and the associated encroachment on the protected forest.

Whether the closed Terminal 2 will ever reopen remains to be seen, and the opening ceremony is a funeral service for the noise-plagued region, at which stale champagne is served.”