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All the jokes have been told, now he’s getting serious: Berlin’s BER airport is opening today. Andreas King about a major project in which a lot of things went wrong, and the future is also uncertain.
By Andreas König, RBB
It all started almost a quarter of a century ago: in 1996, the states of Berlin, Brandenburg and the federal government – the subsequent shareholders of the airport company – recommended building the new airport in Schönefeld and closing the Berlin Tempelhof and Tegel airports. A decision that unleashed an avalanche of demands from municipalities and residents from the beginning of planning, which only decreased in early 2020. The main arguments refer to noise, acoustic protection, flight routes and the ban on flights nocturnal.
Times of failure then begin in 2003. No agreement is reached with the private companies that must carry out the construction. Berlin, Brandenburg and the federal government therefore decide to take over the management themselves, and thus all financial risks.
Symbol of mismanagement and planning chaos
Then in 2006, the first opening ceremony. There are more problems with planning and construction, an ongoing dispute in court with residents. All of this leads to cost increases and delays even at this point. On May 8, 2012, public admission continues: This will no longer work with the planned opening in just under four weeks. One reason: problems with the fire protection system. A little later, March 2013 was named as the new start date.
But what follows is an eight-year drama surrounding the building that reveals an unimaginable degree of mismanagement, planning errors, and wasted taxpayers’ money. There are four more postponements of the opening date, two investigative committees of the Berlin House of Representatives, a bankrupt company and legal proceedings for bribery and corruption against an airport manager and participating companies.
“It is not a masterpiece”
By 2017, Berlin Secretary of State Engelbert Lütke-Daldrup takes over the leadership, three CEOs will have failed due to the BER construction disaster. The best known: Hartmut Mehdorn, former railway chief, former chief of Air Berlin. “All in all, it was not a masterpiece for everyone involved,” Mehdorn told the dpa news agency these days. Looking at the many planning mistakes, he says, “Anyone who plans a single-family home and secretly changes it to a three-family home shouldn’t be surprised by the end of time and missing deadlines.”
The chaos of construction and planning also leads to an explosion in construction costs. Currently they are estimated at around six billion euros, almost three times the amount initially planned. And the airport will need financial help for years to come, and not just because of the crown-related drop in air traffic. “BER will never cover its costs,” fears Green Party leader Anton Hofreiter at the rbb. The airport will remain a long-term grant company.
Tourniquet BER?
It is also unclear whether BER will become an air hub like Frankfurt am Main or Munich in the future, as the airport company would like. Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr initially doesn’t believe in long-haul flights from BER. “If it was worth it, many airlines would offer it immediately. And of course we would too. There have been several attempts, but sadly it never worked,” he said recently in the “Tagesspiegel”.
Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer seems more optimistic. at rbb CSU politician agrees to support BER. And it almost sounds a bit challenging: “Berlin is our capital, Berlin has to be a center.” An air traffic summit is scheduled for November 6, at which not only emergency aid but also these issues will be discussed.
But now it should really start in BER. First takeoffs and landings are planned, not a big party. An opening in the middle of the Corona crisis. But at least one fear will not be fulfilled: that the airport reaches its capacity limits from the beginning.
