Motivational
24 Jul, 2025
Thomas Evans
Germany is changing its asylum policy. In the future, rejected asylum seekers will be deported more quickly. A project is being planned at Munich Airport.
Munich, IATA code MUC, is the second largest airport in Germany. The airport, located in the federal state of Bavaria, is a hub for the German airline Lufthansa. With a total of 73 airlines, flights can be made to 216 destinations in 68 countries. A third terminal will be added to the two passenger terminals: Germany plans to build a special deportation terminal at MUC for migrants who need to leave the country.
Munich Airport plans to build a building for the federal police, a company spokesman said on Wednesday. The airport's main owner is the Free State of Bavaria, while the federal government and the city of Munich hold minority shares. Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann and German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, both from the CSU party, regularly call for stricter deportations of rejected asylum seekers and foreign criminals.
According to a tender document for the airport, the so-called “repatriation terminal” will have two floors, Reuters news agency reports. Construction is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2028. It will be designed to “handle up to 50 individual and collective charter flights per day.”
“A central registration desk will be installed in the building to efficiently coordinate repatriations,” the document continues. The federal police have not commented on the plans so far.
The project is politically controversial. "A special deportation terminal, we view this rather critically," regional politician Gülseren Demirel (Alliance90/The Greens) told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
For his part, Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) considered it reasonable to repatriate criminals to their countries of origin. “That’s why I don’t think it’s a bad idea, in principle, to have a terminal of this kind.”
The city of Freising, located north of Munich, where part of the airport is located, discussed the project this week. According to the city administration, the city's planning commission rejected the chosen location for the airport for planning reasons. The city will submit a report on the matter to the relevant regional authority.