Foundation and early years The first Erfurt airport was built in the mid-1920s at Roter Berg in the north of the city, later also known as Erfurt-North. At the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, this site was taken over by the
Luftwaffe, thus ending passenger traffic. With the end of the war in 1945, Erfurt-North was closed, but in 1956, the pre-military organisation
Gesellschaft für Sport und Technik resumed glider operations here. In 1974, the airfield was finally closed in order to build the residential area Roter Berg on the site. The foundation for today's Erfurt–Weimar Airport was laid in 1935, when a new air base was built by the Luftwaffe west of Erfurt near Bindersleben. In 1945 the air base was taken over by the
Red Army, which stationed an alert unit with
MiG-15 fighter planes here in the 1950s. Around 1957 the airfield was handed over to the East German authorities, who extended it and built a concrete runway. In the following years the airfield was used by the
East German Lufthansa and later by
Interflug for domestic flights until these were discontinued in 1980. In addition, there were individual connections to socialist countries, especially to Budapest in Hungary. Erfurt was also a base for Interflug’s agricultural aviation with the Erfurt district squadron stationed here.
Development since 1990 After German reunification, Erfurt Airport was further expanded and the runway was extended to 2600 m. The airport's name was changed from
Erfurt Airport in 2011, it was felt that from a marketing point of view the addition of
Weimar to the name would better sell the area due to its historic importance. Despite its importance as a state capital and its central location within Germany, the airport features no domestic flights. The only route to
Munich Airport offered by
Cirrus Airlines ceased by March 2012. However, the city became one of Germany's most important long distance railway hubs by 2017, when the newly constructed
Munich-Berlin high-speed line met the Frankfurt-Dresden line at Erfurt main station. As a result, it is possible to reach
Frankfurt,
Berlin and
Munich within two hours by rail from Erfurt, making domestic flights redundant. After the shutdown of
Germania in early 2019, the airport lost the vast majority of its routes. ==Facilities==