Hamburg: Administrative court overturns fines for late night landings

From now on, the Hamburg environmental authority is not allowed to impose any fees and/or fines for late landings at the airport. Until now, airlines that landed after 23 p.m. were financially penalized.

Condor and Lufthansa, among others, had sued against it and argued before the responsible administrative court that there was no legal basis for the fines. Airlines had to pay at least 500 euros in processing fees just for checking whether the night landing was unavoidable. If the authorities came to the conclusion that it was avoidable, a fine was added.

The Hamburg Administrative Court has now decided that the previous practice was unlawful. However, this only affects the environmental authority, because the regular night surcharges to be paid to the airport were not part of the procedure and may continue to be charged.