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BERLIN: Berlin’s new international airport officially opened on Saturday nine years late, massively over-budget and in the middle of a virus-induced air transport crisis.
The first flights operated by low-cost pioneer EasyJet and German national carrier Lufthansa touched down at Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) around 2pm after flying in from nearby Tegel Airport and Munich respectively. Many Germans had almost given up on the airport after years of delays and spiralling costs which saw the facility finally open nine years late.
When it did, there was little fanfare given the deep crisis the aviation industry is going through amid the global coronavirus pandemic which has decimated travel demand.
As a result, “We will simply open, we will not have a party,” Engelbert Luetke Daldrup, president of the airport’s management company, had said beforehand.
Edging further away from any feeling of celebration, climate demonstrators marched on the building to show their opposition to the new facility.
Some brandished a banner reading “BER?: Take off! A crash flight into the climate crisis.” The new airport was meant to celebrate German reunification but became mired in years of delays, scandals and false steps, as well as the added complications wrought by Covid-19.
It is designed to replace ageing Tegel, along with Schoenefeld, which is next door.
The opening is nonetheless a watershed moment for the project, intended as a symbol of German unity and engineering prowess after the country came together after being divided for nearly half a century.
Economy Minister Peter Altmaier spoke Friday of his “joy and happiness” at the airport finally being able to open.
“It weighed on all of us that there were no prospects of (the airport) getting up and running for many years,” he said. “We are obviously glad that it is now possible.”
Since construction began in 2006, the project has been dogged by one failure after another that turned it into a financial black hole and a national laughing stock.