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BER: "Epidemic" opening nine years late - "The situation is serious"

2020-10-31T05:53:37.585Z


The BER opens. Party mood? Nothing. Other airports are closing terminals, airlines are already thinning out their offerings, climate protests follow: "The situation is serious."


The BER opens.

Party mood?

Nothing.

Other airports are closing terminals, airlines are already thinning out their offerings, climate protests follow: "The situation is serious."

  • It took almost a decade longer than expected - the new BER airport will open on October 31.

  • However, there is no party mood in Berlin.

    The appointment falls in the middle of the Corona crisis and thus comes at an inopportune time.

  • Airlines are already thinning out their program at the start, climate activists have announced protests - and the financial situation at BER is "serious".

Berlin

- On

Saturday (October 31st)

the unimaginable for a long time should actually happen: The

new BER airport

will start operations - nine years late.

Among other things, the “monster”, the

airport's smoke extraction system

, has now been defeated.

Actually a reason to be happy.

But the construction of the airport took so long that its opening now comes at an inopportune time.

Not only that

climate and environmental activists have

already announced protests: The

corona pandemic

is

causing

serious

problems

for the aviation industry.

Terminals are being shut down elsewhere, and not many passengers are expected in Berlin either.

And the financial situation at

BER

is already precarious.

BER opening in the Corona crisis: "The situation is serious," says the chairman of the supervisory board - Hofreiter sees "a block on the leg"

"The situation is very serious,"

emphasized

Rainer Bretschneider,

Chairman of

the

Supervisory Board of the Berlin-Brandenburg Airport

Company, on

RBB Inforadio

.

"The financial position and equity in particular are not such that we are positioned for the future." We are therefore in constant contact with the shareholders and have already asked for financial support for the year 2021.

Bretschneider would already be open to private investors.

The

chairman of the Greens in the Bundestag

,

Anton Hofreiter

, also sees the new Berlin airport as “in great economic difficulties”.

It should not be forgotten that the airport has become much more expensive, Hofreiter told the same broadcaster days before the opening.

"It was calculated at 2.5 billion euros and cost 6 billion euros." This means that the airport has become twice as expensive and will remain "a block on the leg" and "a subsidy company".

The

debts due to the high construction costs

would be

offset by lower income from Corona

, which could not cover the costs.

"You need a debt relief concept and it has to be honestly on the table."

The federal government and the two participating states Berlin and Brandenburg are supporting the airport company with 300 million euros this year.

A loan of around 550 million euros has been approved for the coming year.

Corona opening for the capital's airport: Berlin's mayor is hoping for better times

Berlin's governing mayor Michael Müller

, on the other hand, assumes that

BER will not

remain

a subsidy business

- albeit in a somewhat more distant future.

"With Tegel and Schönefeld we saw that an airport earns money," said the SPD politician of the

dpa

.

“We have a special situation with BER because the construction costs have to come back.” And the whole system has to start working, including that beyond air traffic.

“Nowadays an airport earns money with the services around it: with the commercial space, the shopping areas and not primarily with take-off and landing fees,” said Müller.

“But now we are experiencing a pandemic.

We have fewer passengers and fewer companies that use the whole area in Tegel and Schönefeld.

Once we have overcome the crisis, the new airport will make money just like the old one.

Airports in crisis: BER opens - Düsseldorf and Frankfurt for the time being are foregoing terminals

Numerous current

examples from Germany

prove that this will be difficult for the time being

.

The

Dusseldorf airport

, for example, responded to the drastic decline in air traffic and

closes on November 3 to the terminal B

.

The

Frankfurt Airport

will be

the third passenger terminal at the earliest in 2025

in operation.

Because of the corona crisis, there is no earlier demand from customers, said a spokesman for the operator Fraport on Thursday.

The construction work for the approximately four billion euro project will continue, but could be stretched in part for cost reasons.

“Horror balances” * also came from Munich Airport in the pandemic.

Lufthansa was

recently faced with a bizarre problem

: six of their

decommissioned Boeing

747-400

jumbos

are only allowed to

leave the

small Dutch airport Twente

after a long hitch for their flight to the scrap yard

.

Initially, the local air traffic and environmental authorities had blocked the take-offs from the intermediate parking lot.

Opening for the capital city airport BER: Easyjet and Ryanair are already reducing

At BER, the

airlines are

already

preparing

for the

corona situation

with a reduced offer at the opening

.

For example, the largest provider in Berlin to date, the British airline

Easyjet

, has agreed with the trade unions to reduce the fleet stationed in Berlin from 34 aircraft to 18 last year.

The crisis-ridden

Lufthansa

has not stationed its own aircraft at BER

.

It uses the airport primarily as a starting point for long-haul flights with a one-time change at the

Frankfurt

or

Munich

hubs

*

.

The largest German airline is planning to start at BER with just 30 flights a day - around half as many as before the crisis.

The

low-cost airline Ryanair

will

also reduce

its capacities at BER for the winter flight schedule, to 40 percent of the previous year, as the Irish company announced on request.

Ryanair will then serve around 27 international routes.

Around 9,900 extras have tested the #BER in the past few months.

The ORAT logistics team around Florian Steinhaus took care of the trial operation days.

You can find out more about this in the new #BackstageBerlinAirport video.

More insights ➡️ https://t.co/xTuURIwDB4 pic.twitter.com/wHDGikfMoR

- BER - Berlin Brandenburg Airport (@berlinairport) October 23, 2020

Airport boss Engelbert Lütke Daldrup

had recently

expected

a total of around

5,000 passengers on the opening day of

the airport at the main terminal T1.

With the

Tegel closure

a week later, around 16,000 passengers would then be processed at T1.

A further 8,000 passengers would then

travel

via

Schönefeld Airport

, which serves as Terminal 5 of BER.

In

view of these low numbers

,

Terminal 2

,

which has already been completed

, will not be needed for the time being and will therefore not open until spring.

After all: the federal government is already flying from the capital's airport.

BER opens - without a big party: "After this construction period we can't ..."

In view of all these problems, the

party at the airport start

should also be

small.

From Müller's point of view,

a

big celebration for the opening of BER

on October 31st would

not be appropriate

: “Airport boss Lütke Daldrup, Brandenburg's Prime Minister Woidke and I came to an agreement very quickly.

Of course you have to open an airport, but we can't have a party after this construction period, ”he said.

At least one institution was delighted: the

opening of the new capital city

airport

in the middle of the

aviation crisis

is “a sign of confidence” from the industry perspective.

"The need to travel across countries and continents will remain," said the German Airports Association.

The epidemic is a serious turning point.

It is all the more important that the


new airport goes online.

(

dpa / fn

) *

Merkur.de is part of the Ippen digital network

.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2020-10-31

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