During
World War II Cottbus-Drewitz Airport was used by the Luftwaffe and from 1956 by the
National People's Army. Upon
German reunification in 1990, the
Luftwaffe officially took over the airport once again but after 1993, the airport's new owners, Flughafen Süd-Brandenburg-Cottbus GmbH, had opened it for civilian use. In April 2000 a new
control tower was opened. The airport was most often used for
charter flights for the football team
FC Energie Cottbus, but was also used for training flights by
TUIfly,
Lufthansa and
Germania. In late May 2012, a grass strip at the airport was used to conduct unpaved runway trials of the
Airbus A400M military airlifter. Although
Airbus Military had examined the grass strip and believed it suitable, testing was cut short when the test aircraft penetrated the runway surface during a
rejected takeoff test. The test aircraft departed undamaged. Aside from a bistro serving the terminal, there was also a small aviation museum and flying school. The runway 07's centerline latitude is 51.885409 degrees and the longitude is 14.515136. Runway 25's centerline latitude is 51.893514 while the longitude is 14.549012 degrees. The airport closed to all air traffic for the final time on 31 January 2020. Due to investors pulling out, there have been several failed attempts to turn the civilian airport into a
freight hub with a runway, similar in concept to
Frankfurt-Hahn. ==References==