Long Haul

No, this is not a stretched photo, but a picture of the Airbus A340-600 Super Stretch at the Munich airport. It has the capacity of a 747 but with twice the cargo capacity. With the ability to seat 419 passengers, it represents the tremendous increase in traffic through Munich. In 2007, Munich Airport increased its passengers by 3.2 million to a total of 34 million, making it the seventh busiest airport in Europe. Only Madrid grew faster in Europe. Munich set a single-day record of 122K passengers in 2007. Despite all this growth, Munich was named the best airport in Europe and the fourth best in the world, after Asian hubs in Hong Kong, Seoul and Singapore. The infrastructure at the airport – including flights, trains, autos, buses, retail, services, conferencing facilities, etc – is larger than most surrounding cities.