Flughafen Frankfurt-Hahn GmbH, JFH Jet Fuel Hahn GmbH, HNA Airport Services GmbH, HNA Tech GmbH and HHN Aviation Security GmbH have filed for bankruptcy, according to the Bad Kreuzbach District Court and German media.

The district court ordered the provisional administration of the insolvency and appointed a provisional administrator in the shape of lawyer Jan Markus Plathner.

The airport, built on a former US military airfield had previously been under ownership of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. In 2017, the state transferred its 82.5% stake to the Chinese HNA Airport Group, with the remaining 17.5% held by the state of Hesse. The Chinese HNA Group will have to find a solution or new shareholders. It had already filed for bankruptcy in February.

Before the pandemic, Frankfurt-Hahn was Germany's tenth largest passenger airport: in 2019, 1.5 million passengers passed through the terminal. And more than 170,000 tonnes of freight were handled at the airport in the same year.

The airport had been nicknamed "Ryanair's airport", because the budget Irish airline used it as a hub in its early days. Indeed, Hahn, just a 90-minute drive from Luxembourg, was popular with passengers from the grand duchy and the Greater Region, before the Luxembourg airport started welcoming budget airlines.

This article was originally written in French for and has been translated and edited by Delano