Frankfurt - Frankfurt airport may concede to German carrier Lufthansa's request not to ban all night flights despite pressure from politicians and environmentalists.

Lufthansa has been resisting the imposition of a ban on night flights for months and recently made a strong case for it with the Hesse Economics Ministry, which issues the permits for night flights. Lufthansa has requested to be allowed to run 41 of the 60 flights that operate between the hours of 11 pm and 5 am at Frankfurt airport.

Roland Koch, who heads the Hesse government and belongs to the conservative party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has hinted that the government may make an exception to the the night flights rule. Koch said while exceptions could still be made to the night flight ban, based on the merits of individual cases, he was keen to salvage the night flight ban in its substance. He added that it was better to allow exceptions than impose a complete ban on such flights and have such action subsequently corrected or even squashed through rulings passed by the Federal Administrative Court which would, as a final resort, be asked by the complainants to pass judgement. Koch's rivals in the opposition parties, particularly the ecological Green Party, immediately accused him of breaking his promise of imposing a strict ban on night flights.

In defending Lufthansa's call for night flights, Stefan Lauer, a member of Lufthansa's executive board, who heads the airline's aviation services and human resources, said they were necessary in order to keep pace with its fleet's growth in the next 13 years.

Lauer said he had provided strong supporting evidence about the economic necessity of every flight it had requested. Without such a contingent, Lufthansa Cargo would not be able to assert its leading position in the fiercely competitive cargo market, he added.