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Originally constructed by the German Air Ministry in the 1930s, the Flughafen Braunschweig-Wolfsburg is on the northern edge of Braunschweig, situated between Hanover and Magdeburg. Its main runway is short 1680 m and narrow 30 m, and it also has a parallel grass runway of 900 m by 30 m. Braunschweig-Wolfsburg is used for unscheduled traffic with business-jets, as well as by the German Aerospace Center, e.g. with their special mission aeroplanes to discover phenomena in the atmosphere. Also, the Technische Universität Braunschweig has some of the aeronautical departments in situ. The car manufacturer Volkswagen AG of Wolfsburg is a major shareholder, and uses the airfield as home base for their own airline fleet - Volkswagen Air Services. Volkswagen AG operate regular services to other European sites of the company and its subsidiaries, such as Škoda, Audi and SEAT. As of May 2009, the extension of the runway to 2300 m has received its final legal go-ahead. Some -38 millions are envisaged for the airport upgrade. Despite strong resistance from local action groups, both Volkswagen and DLR pushed forward with the project in order to be able to use bigger than regional jets under all weather conditions in the future. While the DLR will fly a research Airbus A320 within their flight control and supervision programme from the airport, Volkswagen intends to utilise narrow body aircraft on its business routes instead of its current regional aircraft types. No plans to intensify commercial traffic from and to the airport have been made public yet. Braunschweig airport traditionally has been a major centre of gliding in Germany. |
