Hamburg
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Hub and Bespoke Northern Germany has a long history and a bright future in aviation, currently home to over 300 aviation-related firms including Airbus, Lufthansa Technik, Diehl and Zodiac Aerospace. We revisit the city of Hamburg’s flying foundations, and see how government and academia are collaborating to meet future demand within an industry increasingly renowned for personalized and curated service standards. by Maryann Simson
Students gather around at the Lab for Cabin and Cabin Systems (CCS) at HCAT II.
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amburg was strongly affected by World War I and completely devastated in Allied bombing raids during World War II. Yet the city, its people and its economy have subsequently not only persevered but excelled. Today, Hamburg is a municipality of over 1.8 million people (with the highest purchasing power in Germany) and is currently ranked as the third-largest worldwide site within the aviation sector, after Seattle and Toulouse.
hamburg’s aviation history Hamburg’s first airstrip was built in 1911 in the city’s Fühlsbuttel district. Scheduled flights by the world’s first passenger airline, DLR (Deutsche Luft-Reederei, or German Air Transport Company), commenced there in 1919. Global recession affected aviation and many of Hamburg’s other business sectors in the early 1930s, including the city’s main industry: shipping. Convinced that aircraft would very soon traverse great distances of water, shipping magnate Walther Blohm created Hamburger Flugzeugbau (Hamburg Aircraft Construction) and incorporated it as a subsidiary of his shipbuilding and engineering works, Blohm & Voss. Located at the current site of Airbus’ completion center and airstrip in Finkenwerder, Hamburger Flugzeugbau manufactured a number of notable aircraft including large “flying boats” which had no landing gear and a hull-like fuselage for water takeoff and landing. In the ’30s and 1940s, this location also produced warplanes for Hitler’s Third Reich. In the aftermath of World War II, Hamburg’s industrial areas and transportation networks lay in total ruin. The airport was swiftly rebuilt
and within a decade things were getting back on track. “1955 was a very distinctive year for the German aviation industry and also for Hamburg aviation,” explains Uwe Kleber, aviation cluster representative at Hamburg Ministry of Economy, Transport and Innovation. “Lufthansa was refounded and Hamburger Flugzeugbau resumed the construction of aircraft in Finkenwerder with the HFB 320 business jet.”
ode to airbus By the 1970s globalization had caused much of the world’s maritime business to shift to Airline Passenger Experience Association