Flight operations at Magdeburg-Cochstedt Airport (CSO/EDBC)
Magdeburg-Cochstedt Airport (CSO/EDBC) has been open again regularly since May 6, 2022. Take-offs and landings are possible under visual flight rules for aircraft up to 14 tons.
General information
Flight requests, take-offs or landings outside of opening hours are only possible with a PPR application in advance. The application must be submitted 48 hours in advance. The application form and further information on the use of Magdeburg-Cochstedt Airport can be found on the airport's website.
The DLR DO 228 research aircraft in Cochstedt
The DLR DO 228 research aircraft at DLR's Cochstedt test airfield in Saxony-Anhalt.
Magdeburg-Cochstedt Airport has a long tradition. Built in 1957 as a base for the Soviet air force, it developed into a civilian commercial airport with continuous day and night operations and an instrument landing system after reunification. After the turn of the millennium, however, flight operations had to be suspended for years due to the insolvency of the operator.
After the privatization of the airport initially failed in 2009 due to the insolvency of the investment group from Abu Dhabi, a Danish operating company was awarded the contract to take over the site in 2010. There were plans to build a central transshipment point for (air) freight on the site. There was also talk of renaming Magdeburg-Cochstedt Airport to "Airport Magdeburg-Berlin International".
Commercial passenger connections from Magdeburg-Cochstedt were offered for the first time in the 2011 summer flight schedule. With the Irish low-cost airline Ryanair, vacationers were able to fly regularly from Cochstedt to Alicante, Malaga, Girona and Las Palmas in Spain. Later, other airlines also offered connections to Hurghada (Egypt), Bern (Switzerland) and Munich. Around 76,000 passengers were handled in Cochstedt in 2011. However, due to low capacity utilization, all airlines gradually discontinued their connections to and from Cochstedt by the end of 2013. The lack of flight connections ultimately led to renewed insolvency and the closure of the airport in 2016.
In 2019, the airport was sold to the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in order to establish the National Test Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems there. Magdeburg-Cochstedt Airport has also been open to civil aviation again since April 1, 2022. The parallel operation of the commercial airport and the drone testing center will enable findings to be gathered for future applications between civil aviation and unmanned aircraftsystems (UAS).
Airbus A320 (D-ATRA) performing tests in Cochstedt
