Flughafen Stuttgart GmbH had just 2 million passengers in 1974, the year in which Manfred Rommel was elected mayor of Stuttgart. This office automatically brought him the chairmanship of the airport supervisory board, so that no strategic decision on the development of the state airport was made in the following 22 years without his placet. It was an affair of the heart for Manfred Rommel to make Stuttgart Airport fit for the future and thus secure Baden-Württemberg's economic strength. In particular, he campaigned for the relocation and extension of the only runway.
