The first regular scheduled train ran from the train station on 30 May 1999 as Intercity 537 ("Moritzburg") at 05:37 AM. Deutsche Bahn initially forecast five million passengers per year. After completion of the high-speed line to Cologne in 2002, this figure was expected to rise to nine million passengers annually. This corresponded to a quadrupling of the ridership previously measured at the regional station. A study from the 1990s expected that, in 2002, an additional 919,000 passengers would travel by train to the airport rather than by car or taxi and around 1.3 million arriving passengers would use rail instead of short-haul flights to the airport.