Michael Hepting

The Demand for Air Transport and Consequences for the Airports of Hamburg and Rostock

In the following, we discuss the question of whether or not demographic change will have an impact on the infrastructure needed in the air transport sector. For this purpose, the population and economic scenarios for the year 2030, described in Chapter 2, are used as the basis to estimate the future German air transport demand. The consequences of demographic change on the passenger demand and its structure are discussed. For the airports of Hamburg and Rostock, the number of aircraft movements is derived from the estimated airport passenger demand. The current and planned infrastructure capacities at Hamburg and Rostock airports are compared with the predicted aircraft movements. The results show a significant change in the level and structure of air passenger demand. While the total population will decrease over the next few decades, it is expected that the specific demand (trips per capita) will rise. As a consequence, the total air transport demand will continue to grow. It is also estimated that the current high capacity utilisation at Hamburg Airport will further increase in spite of the capacity utilisation of Rostock Airport which will remain low.