Frankfurt Airport: Malaria Mosquitoes, a Night Flight Ban and the Squaire

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In 2026 a malaria outbreak at Frankfurt Airport sickened six workers and killed two, traced to an infected mosquito that arrived on a flight; a smaller incident occurred in 2023. Frankfurt has the most direct routes of any airport, 330 destinations on five continents, moved over 61 million passengers in 2024 and is Europe's busiest cargo hub. It sits at the Frankfurter Kreuz, where the A3 and A5 autobahns meet, inside the industrial belt known as the Blue Banana. Its four runways each have narrow roles: Runway 18 handles only southbound takeoffs, and the Northwest Runway handles only landings and bans the A380 and 747, allowing 126 movements an hour.

A 2016 study valued the airport's economic impact at $22.3 billion, but the Northwest Runway, inaugurated by Angela Merkel in 2011, brought weekly noise protests from towns such as Kelsterbach and Rüsselsheim. The Hessian administrative court banned flights from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., a ruling later upheld by Germany's federal administrative court. Terminal 3 opened in phases from April to June 2026 on the former Rhein-Main Air Base, drawing 56 airlines including Oneworld and SkyTeam members and Emirates, and Terminal 2 closed for renovation until the mid-2030s.

• A bomb in a canvas bag exploded in Hall B in 1985, killing three people and injuring over 30.
• In 2011 a 21-year-old shot and killed two U.S. airmen on a bus bound for Ramstein Air Base; when his gun jammed, an airport employee and a staff sergeant chased him until police arrived.
• A 2007 terror plot targeting the airport and Ramstein was foiled.
• The Squaire, linked to Terminal 1, covers 140,000 square meters with KPMG offices, two Hilton hotels and a people mover carrying 1,300 passengers an hour.
• About 25 percent of passengers arrive by rail, using a regional S-Bahn station and a long-distance ICE station opened in 1999.