Germany: a new airport opens in Berlin, more than eight years late
The new Berlin-Brandenburg Willy Brandt airport opens in the midst of the crisis in the aviation sector due to Covid-19.
AP Photo / Markus Schreiber
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
He sparked endless jokes.
He inspired cartoonists and cabarettists.
Some simply proposed that we shave it to end it.
But today is the big day: Berlin's new major airport is opening more than eight years late at a time when - ironically - air traffic is just a shadow of itself.
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with our correspondent in Berlin,
Pascal Thibaut
The first symbolic groundbreaking date dates from 2006. BER airport - its international code - was to be inaugurated initially five years later.
But the opening must be pushed back at the last
minute.
The fire protection system does not work, emergency doors do not open, the wiring is a disaster, the escalators are too short.
The lack of coordination of the companies on the site, the multiple changes during construction partly explain this disaster, with on arrival an invoice three times higher than at the beginning.
Frenchman Patrick Müller, operations manager, is on his seventh airport opening.
The last one was the most difficult.
“
We're not going to have a big party, because there's no need to have a party when you're eight or nine years behind.
What bothers us a lot is that the coronavirus is really giving us a lot of problems.
This will force us to send our colleagues on technical unemployment from the month of January if the number of flights and demand do not increase.
"
Ten million passengers expected in Berlin in 2020
Berlin welcomed 34 million passengers last year.
Ten million are expected this year.
From the start, Willy-Brandt Airport - its official name - needs new money and has to save money.
One of the terminals will only open next year at best.
After the pandemic, however, the new site will provide the German capital with an infrastructure worthy of the name in a growing region.
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To listen: Germany: the new Berlin airport
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