"We have finished", says after years of the building disaster at BER. But suddenly Berlin has more airports than it can use. The long farewell to Tegel has begun.
Schönefeld (dpa) - Berlin's Tegel Airport could soon go offline. Berlin, Brandenburg and the federal government want to advise on Wednesday, as the Federal Ministry of Transport announced on Friday.
Airport manager Engelbert Lütke Daldrup warned that given the cost, there was no time to waste: Berlin counted fewer than 2,000 passengers a day. "So now is the time to save money." Two things are still missing to close Tegel: the approval of the aviation authority. And furniture.
Because to give up Tegel, the government aircraft would have to move to BER. There, the future government terminal will still be set up, as Lütke Daldrup explained. "In my opinion, the federal government has made a great effort in the past few weeks to speed up the completion process."
According to information from the newspaper "BZ", however, it may take until mid-July before the new government terminal is ready for operation. And the federal government would not agree to take Tegel off the network beforehand. The Ministry of Transport did not want to comment on Friday.
The passenger terminals at BER are scheduled to go into operation in October, after which Tegel will have to close anyway. Lütke Daldrup actually wanted to say goodbye to the beginning of May, now he's getting the airlines ready for June. "We communicated the date June 2 with our customers." It is also necessary for the aviation authority to lift the operating obligation. The application was submitted a good two weeks ago.
The airport company has big money problems even without a corona crisis. Despite passenger records, it made losses again last year. The minus was just under 96 million euros and was thus around 19 million euros higher than in the previous year.
The current business with the airports Tegel and Schönefeld again made a profit; According to the company, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization are 108.4 million euros, said Lütke Daldrup after a meeting of the supervisory board. The construction site of the new capital city airport BER and old debts would have led to the red bottom line.
After numerous construction defects and planning errors, the airport is scheduled to go into operation on October 31, nine years late. "The builders were able to report today: We have finished," said Lütke Daldrup. Trial operation is now underway.
Berlin's finance senator Matthias Kollatz (SPD) speculated on Thursday that BER should be launched four weeks earlier. Lütke Daldrup reacted cautiously. It was too early for such a statement. It is always good to have buffers.
The airport company belongs to the states of Berlin, Brandenburg and the federal government. Despite the deficit, Lütke Daldrup contradicted a current study of business economists, despite the deficit. This "milk girl bill" is based on false assumptions.
What is certain, however, is that this year alone, the state-owned company will need an injection of up to 300 million euros because of the corona crisis - about two thirds of the usual annual turnover. Even before Corona it was clear that the company would have a financial gap of almost 800 million euros from 2021 to 2024 - "essentially follow-up costs for BER", as the managing director said.
Lütke Daldrup assured, however, that the revenue situation would change completely after the BER opening. Instead of 12 euros as before, 18 euros per passenger will be earned, and by 2023 at the latest there will be as many passengers as before the crisis; that would be about 100,000 a day. From 2025, the airport company will make a profit and will be able to pay its debts, emphasized Lükte Daldrup.
The future CFO Aletta von Massenbach should also ensure this. She comes to the BER from Frankfurt airport operator Fraport in September. For the time being, it is about protecting the balance sheet further. The short-time work for a large part of 2200 employees in the company was extended until the end of the year.
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