Happy birthday Munich Airport! 60 years ago – on October 12, 1949, the state of Bavaria and its capital, the city of Munich, established the airport operating company Flughafen Munchen-Riem Gesellschaft mbH (FMG). At that time, FMG had just 134 employees. Today Munich Airport is among Bavaria's largest employers, with some 30,000 employees working for more than 550 companies – including approximately 7,500 with the FMG Group.

This explosion in employment was triggered by the rapid growth in traffic at Munich Airport over the past 60 years: In the first year of operations in Riem, to the east of Munich, just 28,970 passengers used the airport. Last year the airport counted 34 million passengers. This represents an 1100-fold increase in passenger traffic since FMG was founded. A key milestone for the development of the airport was the move from the Riem location to the new site on May 17, 1992. Since then Munich Airport has taken its place as one of Europe's major hubs, and ranks among Europe's top ten both in terms of passenger traffic and the number of take-offs and landings.

Dr. Michael Kerkloh, CEO of FMG, is also confident that the Bavarian hub has rosy prospects. Commenting on the big anniversary, he said: "With our strategic expansion plan we are now setting the stage for the next chapter in Munich Airport's success story. As we move ahead with the develop-ment of this airport we will focus first and foremost on sustainable airport operations, and in particular the priorities of climate change and environ-mental protection.“