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FRA> With the Berlin Airlift 60^th anniversary  ceremony held today at the Airlift Memorial site at Frankfurt Airport, Fraport AG and the Hesse state chancellery want to thank the Americans, British and French for their commitment to maintain the freedom of West Berlin during the Soviet blockade and to honor the Allied personnel who lost their lives during the airlift. Furthermore, we want to make young people aware that "freedom and peace are not a foregone conclusion but must be achieved  over and over again with courage, democratic action and  solidarity:  The common values of a free and growing Europe must continuously be invigorated in close partnership with the U.S.," explained Fraport's corporate communications director Dieter Weirich.

In 1948, the Americans began to operate supply flights for the besieged city of West Berlin from their main bases in the West: Frankfurt Rhein-Main Air Base and Lindsay Air Station in Wiesbaden-Erbenheim.  Coal-carrying flights operated out of Celle, Fassberg, Wunstorf and Schleswig/Jagel in the British occupation zone.  On June 26, the U.S. Air Force launched "Operation Vittles".  Two days later the British followed with "Operation Plainfare".

In the beginning, the airlift could transport 750 tons of supplies per day.  Only a few weeks into the operation, daily deliveries had jumped to 2,000 tons.  On April 15/16, 1949, aircrews set a record ferrying 12,849 tons of cargo into Berlin aboard 1,398 flights over a 24-hour period.

The foundation of the supply flights was a highly intelligent logistics system. Operations through the three air corridors to West Berlin were one-way.  The northern corridor (from Hamburg) and the southern corridor (from Frankfurt) were assigned to Berlin-bound aircraft while the central corridor (Berlin to Hanover) was reserved for outbound traffic from Berlin.  Within the corridors, aircraft flew at five different altitudes.  Every three minutes an aircraft would land at Tempelhof (U.S. sector), Tegel (French sector) or Gatow (British sector) in Berlin. 

The three struts of the Airlift Memorial monuments in Berlin  and Frankfurt symbolize the three air corridors.  Berliners have dubbed the monument Hungerkralle (hunger rake). The monument at Frankfurt Airport was built in 1985 on the initiative of the German-American Airlift Association.  Some 900,000 D-mark in donations were raised at that time for the Airlift Memorial.  A smaller  replica of the monument is located at the Wietzenbruch RAF base near Celle.

The ceremony at Frankfurt Airport today also commemorates the 41 British, 31 Americans, and 6 Germans who sacrificed their lives in this humanitarian relief mission.  There were a number of fatal accidents during the total of 278,000 flights.

The Douglas DC3 is a main feature of the ceremony.  This aircraft type was used in the Berlin Airlift; during the airlift's "Operation Little Vittles", which claimed worldwide attention, it was nicknamed the "Candy Bomber."  Colonel (retired) Gail Halvorsen, who is now 87, stands for this operation.  He attached candy to tiny handkerchief parachutes and dropped them from his aircraft to the children of Berlin. He told the kids he would wiggle the wings of his plane so that they would recognize him. This won him the nickname "Uncle Wiggly Wings".

Today's ceremony with more than 700 invited guests also demonstrates Fraport's close ties with the Americans, Weirich said.  Over many decades Fraport has "closely cooperated" with the U.S. military at Rhein- Main Air Base "in a spirit of mutual trust".  Weirich emphasized the enormous development of Frankfurt Airport (FRA) since the end of World War II. In 1950 the airport served 200,000 passengers per year, and by the  end of this year FRA expects to exceed the 55 million  passenger mark.  Thus, Frankfurt is one of the top ten airports in the world.  Airfreight has risen from 1,616 metric tons to more than 2.1 million metric tons over the same period.  With a work force of more than 70,000 people, FRA is the largest employment complex at a single location in Germany.  By comparison, in 1966 FRA had a work force of 10,000.

In closing, Weirich explained that Fraport has remodeled the Berlin Airlift Memorial site at Frankfurt Airport. U.S. military personnel volunteered in the renovation work. From August 1, the memorial site will be open to the public.