The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

BER could still need funding for several years

2020-05-18T16:20:55.382Z


The constant debacle around the new capital city airport has swallowed up a lot of money. Now the airport is almost done. But there are hardly any passengers left.


The constant debacle around the new capital city airport has swallowed up a lot of money. Now the airport is almost done. But there are hardly any passengers left.

Potsdam (dpa) - According to the operator, the new capital city airport BER could initially become a subsidy business as a result of the corona crisis.

"We may still need support in 2021, 22, 23," said airport chief Engelbert Lütke Daldrup on Monday in the special committee of the Brandenburg state parliament. It will take a long time before passenger numbers are back to what they were before the crisis.

The BER is scheduled to go into operation at the end of October. Tegel should close its existing airports by November at the latest, and Schönefeld will become part of the new airport at the same location.

For this year, the operators had estimated the financial gap in day-to-day business in Schönefeld and Tegel to be up to 300 million euros. Lütke Daldrup said the supervisory board would like to discuss the period after 2020 in the autumn. How to deal with the financial situation will also be discussed with the airport owners - these are the federal government and the states of Berlin and Brandenburg.

The company is currently having a hard time getting loans. And the BER has not yet been fully paid for. Its financial framework is currently 6.5 billion euros, a good three times as high as stated at the start of construction in 2006.

Construction defects, planning errors and postponed opening dates drove up the costs. The company does not expect to make a profit until 2025. And only then will it be able to pay off debts.

Even without a corona crisis, there is still a gap of 792 million euros in the business plan for the next four years. Originally it was said that this money would be used to expand the airport after the opening. Now, above all, bills are to be paid for BER.

The operators actually wanted to fill part of the gap with unsecured loans amounting to 400 million euros. On Monday it said: "At the moment we will not get it." The turmoil on the financial markets is extreme.

However, the company has an advantage in the corona crisis, as Chairman Rainer Bretschneider made clear. The BER does not have to go online under full load. Bretschneider remarked: "What is his uhl to one is his nightingale to another."

Airport press releases

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2020-05-18

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-01T03:49:12.843Z
News/Politics 2024-02-01T06:40:31.791Z

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-27T16:45:54.081Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.