Tempelhof delays route from Poznan
Before even beginning its flights from Poznan to Heringsdorf in northeastern Germany, regional carrier Tempelhof Express Airlines last week requested permission to postpone flights on this route to a later date.
"They think that circumstances will change and that we will offer them Poznan-Berlin," said Jacek Klaudzinski, deputy director of the civil aviation department within the Transportation Ministry.
According to a 1975 bilateral agreement between Germany and Poland, German flights between the two nations can depart from only three points out of Poland and to the cities of Frankfurt, Berlin, Munich and Dusseldorf. But routes that have a seating capacity of fewer than 70 seats, however, can fly to smaller towns.
"We applied for an exemption from this," said Hans-Henning Romberg, general manager of the airline. The application to fly from Poznan to Berlin was made in January on the grounds that Berlin is now Germany's capital and that the socioeconomic situation in Central Europe has changed. But the airline's application received a denial, and Tempelhof applied for a route between Poznan and Heringsdorf, near the Polish border town of Swinoujscie.
Currently, Lufthansa flies out of Warsaw and Katowice to Frankfurt, Berlin, Munich, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Cologne, while its regional airline Eurowings has a direct flight from Wroclaw to Munich. Eurowings also has flights from Poznan to Dresden and from Krakow to both Dresden and Hannover.
Last August, Tempelhof Express was on the verge of receiving its permission to fly from Poznan to Heringsdorf. But the regional carrier requested that permission to fly out of Poznan be moved to summer 2000, citing seasonal passenger traffic as a reason and expressing the desire to eventually be able to fly to Berlin, Klaudzinski said.
Romberg said that the cancellation of the flight plan was seasonal, due to the lack of traffic between Heringsdorf and Berlin's Tempelhof Airport in the wintertime.
"The flight would continue (from Berlin), but with a different flight number," he said, noting that nothing is written in any treaty about connecting flights.
Although Poland is moving toward an open-sky policy, Klaudzinski does not believe that there will be any changes in bilateral agreements between the two nations before Poland and the European Commission reach a bilateral agreement for the European Community. Talks on that are due to take place in late November. But Klaudzinski was unwilling to comment on what the possible outcome of the negotiations will be.
"My feeling is that the Polish government should reconsider this," Romberg said of the current restrictions between Germany and Poland.
A decision on whether Tempelhof's flights from Poznan to Heringsdorf can be postponed until summer 2000 is expected in mid-December.
