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If the corona pandemic goes unfavorably, there is the risk of a significantly larger financial gap at the new capital airport BER in 2021 than this year. The worst case scenario foresees that the federal and state governments add 660 million euros, according to a letter from the Federal Ministry of Finance. This year it’s 300 million. The RBB reported on the letter from Parliamentary Secretary of State Bettina Hagedorn to green budget politician Sven-Christian Kindler; Hagedorn appeals to the Ministry of Transport.
“It is already foreseeable that more financial resources will be required in the coming years,” says the newspaper that is available to the dpa news agency. The ministry also recalls that before Corona it was planned to start making money with BER from 2025. “This is now changing in accordance with the medium-term effects of the pandemic, which cannot yet be reliably assessed.”
Some kind of “financial pyramid scheme”?
Bundestag member Kindler criticized: “Every three months it turns out that the FBB still needs millions more to make ends meet.” What is needed is a relentless fall in cash and full transparency on costs and revenues. Kindler also assumes that the airport company FBB is overvaluing its fixed assets and expects a special depreciation worth billions. Kindler therefore asks Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) to clarify whether the FBB “uses a kind of financial pyramid scheme.”
The airport chief, Engelbert Lütke Daldrup, had announced a financial requirement of € 300 million for this year due to Corona in March. For next year, the Supervisory Board approved the raising of loans to shareholders of up to 552 million euros in October, the basis was the business plan for 2021, assuming a moderate course of the pandemic. In his letter, Hagedorn names 540 million euros for this case and also quantifies the economic consequences of a worst case at 660 million euros.
Financial planning stitched on the edge
The amounts for 2021 each include a financial requirement of around 375 million euros, which the company had already named before the crown crisis. The money is mainly needed to pay the bills for the new BER airport.
Willy Brandt Airport opened about two weeks ago after years of delays. At the inauguration, Lütke Dalrup said: “We want to be in the dark in the mid-twenties”, but limited: “We will see to what extent Corona allows it.”
However: According to RBB (detailed report can be found here), financial planning is stitched to the brim even without a pandemic. For 2021, the management had originally expected, without Corona, a revenue from flight operations of 501 million euros. If this forecast had not been made, the deficits would have been even larger than planned. Specifically, when asked, FBB admitted that “falling below projected sales revenue will inevitably lead to a shortfall in funding as it has been calculated without significant reserve positions.”
