The summer holidays have already passed in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Paderborn Airport counted around 35.000 passengers in the six weeks.

According to the company's own information, around 300 rotations were carried out and there should not have been any long waiting times for processing. The destinations of Palma de Mallorca, Antalya and Crete were particularly popular this year. Compared to the volume that one had in the summer vacation of the previous year, one could clearly increase. In the same period in 2020, Paderborn had around 13.000 passengers.

"We are very satisfied with the result of the summer holidays, especially since we have been seeing an overall upward trend since June," says managing director Roland Hüser with satisfaction. The airport's press release does not say a word about the canceled holiday flights by ticket seller Green Airlines. He announced Rhodes, Palma de Mallorca and Heraklion with aircraft from German Airways.

The German airline did not operate these flights, however, and the Bulgarian Alk Air withdrew its almost 30-year-old Boeing 737-300 after only a few legs. The Romanian Just Us Air, which was presented as an "additional airline partner", denied this and pointed out that they had never signed a contract with the ticket seller Green Airlines. This then canceled the vacation flights from Paderborn and Rostock. Stranded passengers were not rebooked on other connections and if they were entitled to compensation according to EU Regulation 261/2004, a law firm was called in to get rid of the claims.

For Paderborn Airport, Green Airlines' holiday flights are likely to have been a flop. The utilization on the Sylt route is also low and was estimated by Hüser himself in an interview with a regional newspaper at a maximum of 30 to 40 percent. Most recently, this was - possibly also due to various accompanying circumstances that have come to the public - even in the single-digit range. The aircraft used was last flown in by ferry from deepest France.

It is therefore not surprising that Paderborn Airport writes in its press release that it is fully focused on the summer flight schedule for 2022. It is currently assumed that this “should be largely unaffected by the pandemic”. Managing Director Hüser says: “In close contact with tour operators and airlines, we are talking about new destinations, some of which our airport already had in previous years. This also includes the Canary Islands and the Greek Islands ”. For example, Corendon Airlines has already announced flights to Greece from Paderborn for the summer of 2022.