Cologne, 25.08.2008 – More than ten million passen-
gers passed through Cologne/Bonn Konrad Adenauer Airport last year. Just over two thirds of these travelled on low-cost airlines, whereas the other third flew with tra-
ditional airlines and holiday charter flights. Cologne/
Bonn Airport thus has a special position between the purely low-cost airports, such as Frankfurt-Hahn or London/Stansted on the one hand and the traditional airports such as Frankfurt/Main or London/Heathrow on the other.

This strategic positioning is remarkable, in that it ap-
pears to run contrary to conventional convictions and traditional explanatory models in management theory. It was in 1980 that the American management theorist
and Harvard professor Michael E. Porter published his book “Competitive Strategy”, which has long since es-
tablished itself as a standard work. In this book, he
came to the conclusion that companies had to clearly position themselves under the conditions of growing competitive pressure. Either they pursue a differentiation

With more than ten million passengers, Cologne/Bonn Airport is the sixth largest airport in Germany – Much more impressive, of course, are the annual growth rates, which make Cologne/Bonn Airport Germany’s fastest growing airport

Cologne/Bonn Airport focuses equally on low-cost carriers and business with traditional network airlines – With this hybrid competitive strategy, it occupies a special position between exclusively low-cost airports and traditional commercial airports

However, the latter hardly applies to the Cologne/Bonn Airport. In the last five years alone, the volume of pas-
sengers at the airport has almost doubled. The Co-
logne/Bonn Airport was therefore the fastest growing airport in Germany. “Cheap flight at a by no means
cheap airport – what appears to be absurd does seem
to be worthwhile“, concludes the German Manager Magazine. And the respected German weekly news-
paper DIE ZEIT described Michael Garvens, the Mana-
ging Director of Cologne/Bonn Airport as follows: “He pulled off the paradox: cheap flights from an expensive airport”.

If one attempts to resolve this paradox, two insights are relevant. Firstly it is clear that traditional airports can indeed exploit their natural location monopoly in the immediate vicinity of major cities in order to follow a
dual-track policy, because not everyone who flies to Majorca for 19.90 Euro is also prepared to undertake a journey of several hours half way across the country to get to the airport. And the already very densely populated catchment area of the Cologne/Bonn Airport has be-

indicators (KPIs) take priority for low-cost carriers espe-
cially in the area of ground handling as for traditional airlines. This is because most budget airlines demand clear quality standards for ground handling services and are quite prepared to pay appropriate prices for them. As different as the business models, customer segments and cost structures of traditional airlines and low-cost carriers may be, they make similar demands of their handling agent.

In order to understand this counter-intuitive observation,
it is necessary to examine the business model of the
low-cost carriers more closely. Their cost advantages
are only partly explained by the savings which are for clearly visible to everyone, which result for example from dispensing with on-board meals or from direct sales via the internet. Far more important, however, are fixed cost degression effects, which result from the fact that the high fixed costs inevitably associated with the operation of a passenger aeroplane are distributed over a much higher number of passengers. Moving seats closer to-
gether enables more passengers per flight to be trans-

With the opening of its own mainline Intercity Express railroad station, the catchment area of the Cologne/Bonn Airport has increased significantly – Especially for customers from the densely populated Rhine/Main area, journey times to the airport are now shorter than to the competitor Frankfurt/Hahn in the Hunsrück region

The futuristic-looking glass facade of Terminal 2 – Although the building designed by star architect Helmut Jahn was planned for six million pas-
sengers, less than eight years after it was opened an extension must be considered

As the business model of the low-cost airlines therefore depends to a great extent on the turn-around time be-
tween landing and take-off, ground handling is abso-
lutely critical for success.

“If everything does not run smoothly here and there are delays, the whole business model becomes shake”, says VOLK Managing Director Dr. Matthias Baur. If one contrasts this with the fact that ground handling only makes up approximately 5 to 7 per cent of the total op-
erating costs of an airline, it quickly becomes clear that excessive savings targets would be extremely counter-
productive here. This applies all the more as low-cost carriers nowadays increasingly fly to so-called warm water destinations, as flights to holiday regions such as the Balearic island of Majorca, for example, usually carry heavy suitcases, which leads to a considerable increase in luggage volume.

It is therefore obvious that high reliability, flexibility and speed of the handling agent are at least just as impor-
tant for low cost carriers as for the established airlines,

the same handling agent, the “ground crew” of Cologne/ Bonn Airport.

However, this does not mean that both customer groups are tarred with the same brush. Instead, Cologne/Bonn Airport offers each group services which are specifically tailored to individual requirements customer-specific, which is reflected not least in the technical equipment.

A good example of this are baggage tow tractors. To transport the suitcases from the airplanes to the bag-
gage handling area and back, Cologne/Bonn relies a-
bove all on so-called hybrid tractors, i.e. tow tractors which can be operated with both an electric motor and a diesel engine – a technology which is currently causing
a sensation in the automobile industry.

With the purchase of patented hybrid tractors from VOLK, which have won numerous innovation awards, Flughafen Cologne/Bonn GmbH demonstrates that it trusts in state-of-the-art equipment “made in Germany”. Whereas the low-cost airlines are usually supplied with the very cost-

VOLK Hybrid Tow Tractors of the N range are used in particular for handling low-cost airlines – The excellent cost/benefit ratio of these vehicles enables attractive handling fees to be achieved

VOLK Hybrid Tow Tractors of the NT range are used in particular for handling traditional network airlines – The high power reserves of these tractors are especially advantageous when large volumes of baggage have to be transported, for example on the long distance Continental flight to New York

The vehicles of the N series are designed in a very cost- conscious way and therefore stand out against the competition thanks to a unique cost/benefit ratio. This enables Cologne/Bonn Airport to offer low-cost airlines attractive handling fees despite first-class vehicle avail-
ability and a correspondingly high level of service quality. In view of the usually relatively low volume of baggage from low-cost carriers, the maximum towing load of 8.6 tons (according to German BGV C 10 reulations) is more than sufficient.

VOLK Hybrid Tow Tractors of the NT series, on the other hand, are designed for maximum performance and therefore always the product of choice when it comes to handling for traditional network airlines. The maximum towing capacity of 11.5 tons (according to German BGV
C 10 reulations) is especially important in view of the usually greater baggage volume of scheduled flights, such as the long-haul flight of Continental Airlines to New York. With an AC asynchronous electric motor with 20 KW and a powerful Deutz diesel engine with 42 KW,
it has sufficient power reserves even with large towing