The world’s largest beer festival has always been a magnet for leisure traffic, but this year’s Wiesn is smashing aviation records as well. Lufthansa told local media on 27 September that it expects 1.7 million passengers to pass through Munich Airport during the 16-day event—around 10 % more than in 2025 and the highest Oktoberfest volume in the carrier’s history. Demand is led by long-haul markets: the United States tops the booking league, followed by Italy and the United Kingdom. To cope, Lufthansa doubled its temporary London-Stansted schedule to 23 extra rotations, all of which are now sold out. Additional ad-hoc services have also been mounted from Boston, New York and Rome, and the airline has converted some intra-European flights from Airbus A320 to wide-body A330 equipment to soak up group travel demand. For mobility managers, the numbers translate into both opportunity and headache. Premium cabin seat availability to Munich is virtually nil for the festival’s final week, and hotel rates within the city have breached €500 per night—even at mid-scale properties. Companies rushing in executives for automotive and high-tech supplier meetings clustered around the expo halls in Riem are being urged to consider alternate routings via Nuremberg or even Memmingen and use rail links for the last leg. The record flows are also testing border-control capacity. The Bavarian State Police has redeployed officers from quieter regional airports to Munich to keep non-EU passport queues below the 45-minute Schengen code threshold. Early morning peaks remain the pinch point; carriers are reminding travellers to allow at least three hours from curb to gate. Looking ahead, Lufthansa hinted it may request permanent winter slots to London-Stansted and Boston if the strong point-to-point demand proves sticky—a development that could improve year-round connectivity for Munich-based corporates.
Source: t-online Newsblog
