Düsseldorf Airport

DUS originated in 1925 when construction began, and the airport opened on April 19th, 1927. The first international route was by Belgian airline SABENA between Brussels, Antwerp, Düsseldorf, and Hamburg. At the onset of WWII, the military took over the airport, only reopening for civilian use in 1948. As the area was under British control then, the first international flights were via British European Airways to London. Lufthansa initiated services between DUS, Frankfurt, and Munich on April 1st, 1955, and these routes are still in service. The first jet arrived in DUS in 1959 via Scandinavian Airlines’ route Copenhagen-Khartoum. DUS then became the home base for LTU in 1961, surpassing the one million annual passenger mark. The main runway was lengthened to 9,842 feet in 1969, and a new terminal (now Terminal B) opened in April 1973.
Furthermore, today’s Terminal A opened in 1977, and Terminal C opened in 1986. On April 11th, 1996, a fire broke out (known as the Düsseldorf airport fire), which is considered the worst structural airport fire worldwide to date. Caused by welding work on an elevated road in front of Terminal A above its arrivals area, it (and its smoke) spread fast due to insufficient structural fire protection. In all, 17 people were killed, and many others were hospitalized, primarily due to smoke inhalation. Moreover, Terminals A and B had to be restricted entirely, with passengers housed in large tents as repairs were undertaken.
Terminal C was redeveloped in November 1997, while construction began on a new inter-city railway station. Terminal A reopened the following year, while the central building and Terminal B reconstruction began. Then, the airport was renamed Düsseldorf International (from Rhine Ruhr Airport). The Düsseldorf Airport station opened in May 2000, with a capacity for 300 daily train departures. In July 2001, Terminal B reopened, along with the rebuilt Gebäude Ost. The following year SkyTrain, a Siemens-developed suspended monorail (capable of speeds of up to 31 miles per hour), debuted instead of the inter-terminal shuttle bus, connecting the terminal building with the Intercity train station. The first Airbus A380, part of a promotional flight by Lufthansa, landed in DUS on November 12th, 2006.
Furthermore, DUS dropped the “International” from its official name in March 2013 while also unveiling a new corporate design. Emirates scheduled the Airbus A380 on one of their two daily flights from Dubai beginning in July 2015. To accommodate the new aircraft, DUS completed the construction of a new parking position with three jet bridges, widened taxiways, and new ground handling equipment in May 2015. Lufthansa closed its long-haul base, which consisted of two Airbus A340-300s (flying to Newark and Chicago O’Hare), in October 2015, citing economic reasons. In essence, this meant discontinuing the Chicago route, while the Newark route remained in service as part of a W-pattern (Munich - Newark - Düsseldorf - Newark - Munich). DUS suffered a loss of traffic in January 2017 due to Air Berlin, its largest hub operator, downsizing operations. Over a dozen routes were canceled, while Niki took over some leisure routes. In addition, as the airline was undergoing bankruptcy proceedings, it terminated all long-haul routes to the Caribbean. Fortunately, these were taken over by Condor and Eurowings.
Moreover, Air Berlin also announced the termination of its long-haul flights, which meant the loss of several connections to the US. Finally, On October 9th, 2017, Air Berlin terminated all its operations (excluding wet leases). In turn, Eurowings announced the relocation of all its long-haul operations from Cologne Bonn Airport to DUS by October 2018. On the other hand, in March 2019, Lufhansa closed its base at DUS. Moreover, in November 2018, Ryanair announced the closure of its base at DUS (which had only been in operation for a year). However, their routes were taken over by Lauda, operating on a wet lease basis (this, too, ended in October 2020). Furthermore, German airline Sundair reduced its operations at DUS in the autumn of 2022, with only a single route to Beirut remaining. In January 2023, it was announced that this flight would be eliminated, thus completely ending its former base at the airport.

The airport is located four miles north of downtown Düsseldorf, and 12 miles southwest of Essen in the Rhine Ruhr area. 

• The city of Düsseldorf owns half the airport, with the other half owned by Airport Partners GmbH (a private entity comprised of various owners). 
• As the airport is relatively small (2.37 square miles), it is known as a short-haul airport. This is despite its capacity to service long-haul jets such as the Airbus A380. 
• DUS has two airport lounges (the Hugo Junkers Lounge and the Open Sky Lounge) and three airline lounges (Emirates Lounge, Lufthansa Business Lounge, and Lufthansa Senator Lounge). 
• FBOs at DUS include Jet Aviation Dusseldorf and DAS Dusseldorf Aviation Service.