Weeze Airport

Geschichte

Weeze Airport, less commonly known as Niederrhein Airport, is a minor international airport in the Lower Rhine region of Germany. It is mostly used by low-cost carriers, especially Ryanair. The airport is situated 3.7km southwest of the municipality of Weeze and 7km northwest of Kevelaer, about 33km southeast of the Dutch city of Nijmegen, and 48km northwest of the German city of Duisburg.HistoryThe airport uses the facilities of the former military airbase RAF Laarbruch, it began operations as a civil airport in 2003. There is also a large fire brigade training facility on the airport grounds. Its IATA code is NRN because of its official name Flughafen Niederrhein.Weeze was served by the short-lived Dutch low-cost carrier V Bird, which opened a base here and operated flights to Berlin, Munich and several European destinations, from its inception in 2003 until its bankruptcy in 2004. During this time, passenger numbers doubled from 200,000 to 400,000 within a year.In 2008, with 1.52 million passengers, which represented a growth of 80% on the previous year, the airport was among Europe's fastest-growing.