FLUG REVUE April 2005: German aerospace market is vital

April 2005

GERMANY REMAINS STRONG AIRCRAFT MARKET

By Volker K. Thomalla

The McDonnell Douglas (Boeing) MD-11F with identification mark D-ALCP owned by Lufthansa subsidiary LH Cargo went down in history on 11 February, when the three-engine cargo aircraft was entered in the aircraft register of the Federal Republic of Germany, in which all D-registered aircraft are listed. Such an entry is an everyday administrative procedure at the Federal Office of Civil Aeronautics (LBA) in Braunschweig, which has maintained the aircraft register since 1 August 1959. But D-ALCP is not an ordinary aircraft, namely, it is the 30,000th aircraft in the register. Hans-Henning Mühlke, Head of Operations at the LBA, marked the occasion of the anniversary to hand a copy of the documents at Frankfurt airport to the CEO of LH-Cargo, Jean-Peter Janssen.

This entry is a testimony to the strength of the German aircraft market, despite the present economic problems and the record unemployment specifically in Germany. No other country in the European Union has as many civil aircraft registered as Germany. And the register does not even contain all the aircraft that are stationed in Germany. Especially in Business Aviation, there are a number of owners who for operational, certification or tax law reasons, operate their planes under foreign identification marks, so that they are not registered in this country.

The number of aircraft in Germany may have stagnated since 2003, but it is stagnating at a high level. In 2004, a total of 20,611 aircraft were entered in the aircraft register. 619 of these had a maximum take-off weight (MTOW) in excess of 20 tonnes. These aircraft have an A as the second letter of their registration code. In the class between 14 and 20 tonnes, there were 55 entries (with a B as the second letter of the code), while 172 aircraft have a C as the second letter of their marking and hence belong to the class of aircraft with an MTOW of between 5.7 and 14 tonnes. There were a further 440 multi-engine aircraft with a take-off weight of between 2 and 5.7 tonnes. The second largest group are single-engined aircraft with an MTOW below 2 tonnes. These have an E as the second letter of their registration ID. In this category, the LBA counted 6,670 aircraft in 2004. But the largest group in Germany are the gliders, which for some years have numbered around 7,700.

Even if the trend in most certification classes is stagnating or in decline, Germany is the most important aircraft market in Europe. This is confirmed, for example, by a market analysis carried out by Boeing, which views Germany as the third most important market in the world after the USA and China, followed closely behind by the United Kingdom. This statement only applies, however, to aircraft with over 100 seats.

The orders situation also underlines the importance of the German market. Thus, Air Berlin recently placed firm orders for seventy A320's with a further 40 options, while Lufthansa also ordered seven A340-600's. But in fact even orders of foreign carriers have an impact on the German market, as is seen, for example, from the fact that on 1 March Ryanair stationed its sixth Boeing 737-800 at Hahn airport.

From page 4 of FLUG REVUE 4/2005

Last updated 15 March 2005

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