Former CEO of Central German Airports Group awarded Saxon Order of Merit

Volkmar Stein, who was CEO of the Central German Airports Group for many years, was awarded the Saxon Order of Merit on 22 November 2007. State premier Georg Milbradt paid tribute to his special commitment to establishing high-capacity transport infrastructure in Central Germany.

The development of the two airports at Dresden and Leipzig/Halle is inextricably linked to the name of the man who has been decorated. Volkmar Stein played a major role in developing Leipzig/Halle Airport to enable it to become the new DHL air freight hub and he also paved the way for Lufthansa Cargo to set up in business there.

»Saxony would not have become the highly successful federal state with international networks over the past 17 years without the airports at Leipzig/Halle and Dresden,« the state premier said in his citation in honour of the 64-year-old. Georg Milbradt said: »We are on the way to becoming a transport hub at the heart of Europe.« He added that this success was due to the efforts of the person whom he was decorating.

Stein, who worked as head of the civil engineering department at Munich Airport, initially became a consultant at Leipzig/Halle Airport in 1990 and then became CEO of our two airports in 1992. He became CEO of the holding company in 2000 and retained this position until he retired in 2006. Volkmar Stein has worked as a consultant for the Central German Airports Group since then.

The Central German Airports Group is a state owned company and is developing the airports in Central Germany in a forward-looking manner to meet needs. The group has four subsidiaries: Flughafen Leipzig/Halle GmbH, Flughafen Dresden GmbH, PortGround GmbH and EasternAirCargo GmbH. The group achieved a total turnover of € 92.4 million in 2006, handled 79,760 flights and moved 4.19 million passengers and 39,954 tonnes of freight. The group directly employs 903 members of staff and trainees. Some 4,500 people work at the Central German Airports Group sites in a wide variety of companies and public service agencies.