Economy of Dresden flights are offered to Frankfurt, Munich, Düsseldorf, Vienna and Moscow. Furthermore, there are a lot of touristic flights especially to the Mediterranean Regions. There is a larger inner harbour in Dresden. The river Elbe waterway connects Dresden with the Hamburg Harbour and Prague. The Midland Canal offers an indirect connection to the Duisport (Duisburg harbour). Dresden is connected by some longer Bundesautobahns: The A 4 to Frankfurt and Cologne, the A 14 is running to Leipzig and Hannover, the A 13 is running to Berlin and the A 17 is running to Prague. The socialist enterprises had been inefficient already
Accession of Hamburg to the German Customs Union (Zollverein) form a wider more powerful entity. The states which joined fought vigorously against any impairment of their full sovereignty. Hence each member had a veto and the union was not permanent, but had to be renewed after 12 years. Each member sought its own economic advantage. Accordingly, the accession of any of the Hanseatic cities of Hamburg, Bremen or Lübeck would have to be on condition that accession served the city's own advantage. A pre-condition of such advantage was that their territory touched directly with that of the Customs Union, which only happened for Hamburg after 1854, when Hanover joined.