In the 2024 summer flight schedule, the holiday airline Sundair will no longer have any aircraft stationed at Kassel-Calden Airport. This also means that the offer from this airport will be reduced.

Even before today's Kassel-Calden Airport was built, the project was considered controversial. A new commercial airport was built right next to the former commercial airfield. Politicians justified the project with various studies that were intended to attest to the need and economic viability. However, all of the forecasts did not come true and the Regio-Airport writes high losses year after year, which have to be offset by the shareholders, i.e. the public sector.

Kassel-Calden does not have permanent, year-round classic scheduled services. For example, Skyalps' Bolzano connection is seasonal and will not be offered at all in winter 2023/24. This is not entirely understandable, as South Tyrol is a popular place for winter holidays. Kassel-Calden has not yet been able to really establish itself in charter traffic either. Only Sundair has been somewhat successful for several years and has stationed a plane on site until recently.

The German holiday airline doesn't have much competition, as hardly any other carriers are enthusiastic about Kassel-Calden. There is only a small selection of options, which only rarely overlaps with the Sundair routes. Things will be quieter again in the future, because Sundair is withdrawing the locally stationed Airbus in the summer of 2024. The carrier has announced that... A new base was built in Lübeck and stationed an aircraft there.

The withdrawal in Kassel-Calden does not mean that Sundair will completely stop offering services from this airport. According to a report by Hessischer Rundfunk, two out of six weekly flights will be canceled. The program will be shortened to the destinations Palma de Mallorca and Heraklion. These should be offered twice a week. The Hurghada flights will be canceled without replacement.

Kassel-Calden Airport has been in the crossfire of criticism from the very beginning. Most recently, the Greens called for it to be downgraded to a commercial airfield, which should help reduce costs. However, this was rejected by the state government, citing jobs. At least at the moment it seems as if those critics who warned during the planning phase that there was little to no need for this airport and that it could not be operated cost-effectively or even profitably were right. The many reports presented by the political decision-makers at the time predicted a thriving regional airport that would become a kind of bubbling source of money. But that didn't happen.