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This chapter focuses on the conflicts that have accompanied the development of Germany’s largest airport at Frankfurt/Main and examines how these conflicts are embedded in regional governance and airport planning. In the German context, the governance discourse is understood as a multi-faceted framework of actors, institutions and legislation that structures the actions of involved people.

The conflicts within this framework are structured by two aspects: the spatiality of the contested object, which results in tactical descriptions of the space involved, and an understanding of airports as parts of large technological systems which strongly influences the discourse of airport expansion. As spatial conflicts regarding large infrastructures develop over a long period of time, the chapter charts the historical evolution of the expansion conflict from the 1980s until today. It analyses the governance structure and the actor’s constellations throughout time to shed light on the use of narratives and the stability and change of pro and contra coalitions. It concludes with a critical reflection on the role of airports in the German planning system and the problems of governance in the multilevel, multi-actor environment of airports.

The chapter highlights the necessity of examining the environmental impact of airports at different scales, from neighbouring cities to the large labour market stretching up to 100km from the airport.

This chapter examines the torsions and blind spots that structure the contemporary debate on the politics and policy of aviation. It also generates different scenarios for the future of air travel, which can help to unblock the current impasse about the perceived costs and benefits of aviation and its attendant infrastructural needs.

This chapter characterises and evaluates the competing frames that organise the contested realities of air transport. By mapping out the current fault lines of aviation politics and policy, the chapter is also able to delineate four main scenarios regarding the future of aviation, which we name the ‘post-carbon’, ‘high-modernist’, ‘market regulation’ and ‘demand management’ projections respectively.

The chapter problematises and criticises the existing literature, policy reports and stakeholder briefings that inform the contemporary standoff in UK aviation policy. It uses the definition of sustainable development as a heuristic device to map and identify the fault lines structuring contemporary debates on aviation futures. It then builds upon this analysis to delimit four different scenarios for the future of flying.

The chapter analyses the contested realities of aviation politics. It re-affirms the political nature of such divisions, which in turn structure the rival understandings of aviation. The analysis suggests that the identified fault lines are constantly reiterated by competing appeals to ambiguous and contradictory evidence-bases or policy frames. Ultimately, the chapter claims that any significant reframing of aviation policy and politics rests on the outcome of political negotiations and persuasion. But it also depends on the broader views of citizens and stakeholders about the future challenges facing society, as well as the way in which governments and affected agents put in place and coordinate the multiple arenas in which a dialogue over the future of aviation can be held. Aviation futures cannot be reduced to the narrow confines of the technical merits or claims surrounding the feasibility of policy instruments.