The vibrant new terminal at Munich Airport
If the first big question most air travelers ask themselves these days isn’t “Gee, I wonder if I’m gonna make my flight this time—even though I’m three hours early?” then it’s “Gee, how did flying get so darned unpleasant? Where did the glamour go?” “Glamour and air travel?” you ask. Yes, glamour. And if not that, then at least excitement. Like Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart flying off in a DC 3 into some dusty Moroccan sunset. Or Leonardo DiCaprio as a sexy 1960s jetset playboy-crook surrounded by frothy, buxom PAN AM stewardesses. If airports can’t feel glamorous or exciting anymore, then the least they could do is try to be pleasant. That’s a tall order at many of the crusty, musty and generally awful airports the air traveler is forced to suffer nowadays. Good thing, then, that your homebase airport here in Munich, a sexy, young thing only 12 years old, is decidedly different—and not just for the air traveler, but also for the people seeing him or her off—and for the rest of us, too. There aren’t many airports these days where you can nab a designer dress, grocery shop (even on Sundays), hobnob at a five-star hotel restaurant and get laser eye surgery and dental work done. The Visitors’ Park is the stop before you arrive at the terminal. The little pyramid at the heart of the Visitors’ Park, built from soil leftover from construction, actually got more visitors in its first year of opening than Neuschwanstein Castle. The Visitors’ Park is a great stop for airport history buffs and features great tours of a handful of lovingly restored vintage aircraft as well as the airport itself. Throw in free showers in Terminal 1, an airport disco, BMW driver-training courses and car wash and maintenance services, and it might start sounding like one could actually forgo flying altogether and just stay at Munich Airport on a permanent basis. Something to make laptop and Palm freaks happy: Munich Airport is one big veritable Hotspot. Both terminals, the Munich Airport Center (MAC) and the Central Area all feature access to WLAN—Wireless LAN. For those not dragging their own computers around, the Service Center in the Central Area offers Internet and computer access for a small fee. The Service Center also offers dry cleaning, and will store your winter clothing for a nominal fee when you fly to warmer climes. There’s an airport chapel and hairdresser, too. The MAC is the big, open space connecting the two terminals. It serves as a concert venue and is a great place to people-watch in the summer. This is also where you’ll find a collection of independent medical practices catering to the most diverse of health needs—there’s a laser eye surgery clinic, a dentist, a chiropractor, an ear-nose-throat doctor, a physiotherapy center and an internist. Munich Airport also has its own Medicare Clinic, located in Terminal 1, which is open 24 hours a day and provides in- and out-patient medical services—great for anxious flyers who have forgotten their sedatives and last-minute travelers who require vaccinations. Right at the doorstep of T2, and adjoining the MAC, the five-star Kempinski hotel has over 400 rooms, conference rooms and halls, a new Asian restaurant and the conference center located in the MAC means companies can avoid the time and expense of sending their execs downtown for meetings. The new T2, opened last June, offers superior shopping—it has twice as much retail space as T1, with over 18,000 square meters for smart retail stores and restaurants, most of which are airside and thus only accessible for people with air tickets. Hermes, Max Mara, Rene Lezard and a BMW life-style shop among others all vie for the attention of shoppers in that special “flying mood” that enables them to justify purchasing outlandish and budget-breaking fragrances, jewelry and handbags while en route. Prestigious Munich establishments, such as Dallmayr’s and Käfer’s, have restaurants in T2 as well. Holly Golightly and Jackie O would have booked an intercontinental flight from Munich had it existed back then, just to get access to all the shopping on Levels 04 and 05. There’s also a bit of comfort for mere mortals who aren’t taking off. Plane spotters and the like can go to the spacious Visitors’ Terrace, complete with a café and gift shop, for hours of viewing pleasure and catching extra rays reflected from the tarmac and shiny Airbus fleet just meters away. Airport outposts of Munich’s famous Hofbräuhaus and Mangostin restaurants are also open to the public, as are a handful of shops, including Sisley and Timberland. Munich Airport’s Central Area, which is where you come up from the S-Bahn, offers more shopping for the non-flying public, including an expansive last-minute travel market, shops ranging from affordable to expensive as well as Europe’s first-ever airport brewery, Airbräu, which is a big draw for locals from neighboring towns on Thursday nights, when live music is offered. The Edeka grocery store is a godsend for travelers, employees and locals alike, as it, like the majority of shops at the airport, opens early and closes late and is open on Sundays as well. For more information visit www.munich-airport.de or call the Service Center at (089) 97 52 13 75, (in T2) 228 25.