Frankfurt Airport (FRA) is planning to build a new passenger pier that will extend Terminal 1 farther westward by 2012. The pier – with the working title “A0“ – will expand the terminal areas used by Lufthansa and is required independently of FRA’s Airport Expansion Program to accomodate the new Airbus A380 and Boeing 747-8 aircraft ordered by Lufthansa.

Following a Europe-wide competitive tender, Hamburg-based architects and planners Gerkan, Marg & Partner (gmp) were selected as prime planners for Frankfurt Airport’s A-West area.

Fraport AG, the airport’s owner and manager, will invest about half a billion euros for building construction alone. In the final construction phase, the approximately 790-meter-long pier will comprise about 160,000 square meters and will have capacity for up to six million passengers per year. Some 25 architectural firms participated in bidding for this Fraport project. Construction of Pier A0 is scheduled to start in third quarter 2008; but first, several buildings at the Lufthansa base will have to be demolished, as well as the parking garage west of Terminal 1.

Already last year, the top management of Fraport and Lufhansa had reached agreement on the main outlines of this project at Terminal 1, which opened in 1972. “Together, we are opening a new chapter in Terminal 1 utilization,” said Fraport executive board chairman Dr. Wilhem Bender. “This will strengthen FRA’s competitive position.”

As early as summer 2011, the new pier will offer LH passengers more convenience on four levels.

“Pier A0 will open up a new dimension in travel for our customers at Frankfurt, also on the ground,” said Karl Ulrich Garnadt, member of the executive management of Lufthansa Passage Airlines. Furthermore, he said, “with top notch products throughout the entire service chain, we are enhancing and strengthening our future competitiveness here at FRA.”

The new Pier A0 will accommodate up to seven long-haul jets (including four Airbus A380s) or eleven short-haul aircraft. About 800 Lufthansa employees, among others, will be working in the new passenger complex.