Well, that could be an interesting spectacle to see with your own eyes. I have always had an interest in observing planes especially jumbo jets up close, and this bridge means that if I were there, I would be able to admire the aircraft as close as one can normally get with these bad boys. The Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany is one of these amazing airports that has dared to do something different to achieve its goals. As with many metropolises, the space to expand an airport is just not there as most of it is taken by roads, railway lines, bridges and other infrastructure that can’t be moved around easily. For an airport with 2.2 million passengers and 990,000 tons of cargo, it becomes essential to expand its infrastructure. To make it happen, innovative and bold steps need to be taken like this case where a plane taxies above the local highway to get to or back from the main strip of the airport.
Now building such a structure directly on top of another massive transport network is not as easy as it seems. These taxiways are very hard to maintain as well. These taxiways aren’t used for taking off or landing, and you won’t be able to see that, but rather only get into position before thundering off. The bridges extend the airport’s track to 3.6 Km which is the length required for bigger planes to safely take-off.
It is interesting to see that this kind of structure has been realized in Germany when many of you would be putting your money on Japan because of its acute space problem, especially around the cities. The same problem that forced it to construct a whole airport on an artificial island along the coast named the Kansai International Airport. But, Germany has taken the lead in getting airplanes zooming above cars before they have even taken off! The Leipzig/Halle Airport might spell the future for innovative space-constrained transportation infrastructure.
