Posts Tagged ‘BER’

BER – Berlin’s Stillborn Baby?

Monday, December 17th, 2018

“I am convinced that BER will be put into operation in October 2020,” Engelbert Luetke-Daldrup recently said of the troubled Berlin-Brandenburg Willy Brandt Airport. Daldrup became chief executive of the beleaguered airport in March 2017.

So far, the grand opening was postponed eight times. Originally slated to open in 2011, poor planning and subcontracting, recurring changes in design, flawed construction plans, shoddy workmanship, major technical problems, corruption and numerous management changes are only part of the problem. BER is a joint project of the city-state of Berlin, the regional government of the State of Brandenburg and the Federal government of Germany. Too many inexperienced cooks stoking the fire are the other part of the trouble.

Opening of BER delayed eight times

Planning for BER began after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The newly-reunified capital of Germany clearly needed an airport with greater capacity than its existing Tegel Airport (in former West Berlin) and Schoenefeld Airport (in former East Berlin) combined. Authorities decided to replace the two existing airports with the new International Airport BER. Groundbreaking took place in 2006. Completion was slated for 2011. What happened then is almost comical. The opening of BER was postponed eight times for a myriad of reasons: Faulty fire and smoke alarm systems, escalator issues, too few check-in counters and baggage reclaim carousels, lights that could not be switched off, and many other issues.

2011 – Opening postponed to 2012.

2012 – Opening postponed to March 2013, then October 2013

2013 – Opening postponed to 2014.

2014 – Opening postponed to 2016, maybe 2017 or 2018.

2016 – Opening postponed to 2017 or 2018.

2017 – Opening postponed to 2018, 2019 or possibly 2020.

2018 – Opening postponed to 2020.

Ongoing Maintenance of unfinished BER

Every month the airport just sits there unused, it racks up millions of euros in maintenance and upkeep costs. The unfinished BER has to be heated, lit and maintained. Construction workers have to be paid. Empty trains have to run into the airport station every day to keep it ventilated. In early 2018, all 750 arrival and departure monitors had to be replaced. They had reached the end of their service life, having been switched on for six years, even though the airport was closed.

BER is not big enough

Sceptics believe that even if the airport opens on time, it will immediately face a problem: it’s not big enough. The German capital is now the second most heavily populated city in Europe after London, which is served by six international airports. BER’s engineering advisor Dieter Faulenbach da Costa cautions that more people than previously expected will be moving through the main terminal. More passengers will arrive through the railway station in the basement. Smoke and fire emergency systems will have to be adjusted once again to accommodate the increase. The adjustments will take additional time, making a 2020 opening unlikely.

BER - Berlin-Brandenburg Airport still unfinished in 2018. www.walled-in-berlin.com

BER – Berlin-Brandenburg Airport still unfinished in 2018. www.walled-in-berlin.com

Ditch BER and start over?

Faulenbach da Costa believes that BER was too small from the beginning, but the agencies wanted to save money. Even airport CEO Luetke-Daldrup admits that BER will not be able to handle more than 33 million passengers in 2020. And that number is equal to the capacity of Berlin’s two existing airports, Tegel and Schoenefeld, both of which are already bursting at the seams. As it stands, the expected cost to build BER will be 3.5 times the initial budget. A Lufthansa executive predicts that BER will never open. It may just turn out to be Berlin’s stillborn baby.

 

For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on my home page and feel free to follow my blog about anything German: historic or current events, people, places or food.

Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.

 

 

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Berlin-Brandenburg Airport – Project from Hell

Monday, October 19th, 2015

Construction of Berlin’s new metropolitan airport, the Willy Brandt Berlin-Brandenburg Airport (BER), began in 2006. Named after the chancellor who governed former West Germany in the early 1970s, the new airport was to open in 2011. BER is a project of the city-state of Berlin, the regional government of Brandenburg and the federal government of Germany. The topping-out ceremony was held in 2010, but the opening was delayed – first until 2012, then until 2013 http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/berlin-brandenburg-airports-opening-delayed-again/, and most recently until 2017 http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/berlin-brandenburg-airport-boondoggle/. In the meantime, the cost of building the new airport has risen from a projected $4.9 billion to $6 billion and may approach $7.2 billion by completion time. Meanwhile the Berlin-Brandenburg Airport is costing German taxpayers a whopping $17.9 million per day just to heat, light and keep its essential systems going. http://www.mro-network.com/opinion/2015/09/vw-scandal-overshadows-new-berlin-airport-delay/6005 BER has not only been at the butt of many jokes, but after four delays and without a definite completion date in sight, Germany’s reputation for top quality work has been seriously tarnished.

Further Delays for Berlin-Brandenburg Airport

Now there are new potential delays on the horizon. Berlin-Brandenburg Airport’s most serious problem at this time is its faulty fire protection system. While the architects had intended to funnel smoke underneath the airport halls, ventilators were installed on the roof instead. That’s probably because the chief planner for the fire protection system was not an engineer. He was a technical draftsman, as emerged recently http://www.dw.com/en/date-set-for-long-delayed-opening-of-new-berlin-airport/a-18126206. A monitoring committee found that three of the airport’s twenty ceiling panels are  fitted with ventilators that are too heavy. With 8,800 pounds, the ventilators are twice as heavy as called for. The discovery prompted the committee to issue a stop-work order, and workers are not allowed to work inside the terminal until modifications are made.

That’s not all. It has also come to light that unreliable foamed concrete was used for 600 fire-resistant walls. Before final inspection can be passed, these walls will have to be reinforced or replaced.

And there are other issues with the Berlin-Brandenburg Airport: There aren’t enough check-in counters and luggage retrieval systems, the IT system cooling units are too weak, the ducts through which cables are routed are dangerously over-burdened and the airport will be too small after all to handle the expected air traffic.

Corruption charges surround Berlin-Brandenburg Airport

One of the airport’s biggest contractors, Imtech Germany, the company that was in charge of repairing the airport’s faulty fire-safety system, has filed for bankruptcy. The insolvency declaration followed kickback allegations http://www.mro-network.com/opinion/2015/09/vw-scandal-overshadows-new-berlin-airport-delay/6005. This is not the first time that bribery charges have surrounded the construction of BER. Last year, the airport’s technical director, Jochen Grossmann, was convicted of corruption. A fraud probe into several other contractors is underway. Germany’s Bild newspaper reported that three well-known companies are currently under investigation for fraud in connection with work on the Berlin-Brandenburg Airport: Siemens, Bosch and Deutsche Telekom. http://www.dw.com/en/fraud-probe-into-main-contractors-for-berlins-new-airport/a-18652795

Is Berlin-Brandenburg Airport the project from hell? It looks that way!

 

For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on my home page and feel free to follow my blog about anything German: historic and current events, people, places and food.

Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.

 

 

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Berlin Brandenburg Airport boondoggle

Thursday, April 23rd, 2015

Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) has been under construction since 2006 and continues to be a source of nonstop embarrassment for Germany. BER, 11 miles south of the center of the city, was supposed to replace both, Tegel and Schoenefeld airports. The two older airports have become outdated and far too small to adequately serve the projected annual passenger total of around 27 million. Berlin Brandenburg’s opening was initially scheduled for 2010, but quickly pushed back to 2011. Ten days prior to the second planned opening, BER’s inauguration was rescheduled again, this time for 2012. Airport manager, Rainer Schwarz, was fired and replaced by Hartmut Mehdorn.

Corruption, mismanagement and safety issues have pushed back the opening date of Berlin Brandenburg International Airport again and again and resulted in sizable cost overruns. The latest inauguration estimates suggest a date somewhere between the first half of 2017 and the last half of 2018. In the meantime, construction permits for BER’s south wing will expire in August 2015 and permits for the main terminal have an expiration date in October. Extensions are less than desirable because they will add additional environmental protection requirements and barrier-free installations.

Muehlenfeld becomes new CEO

In the latest development, Hartmut Mehdorn, BER’s current airport manager, will step down in June of 2015. Karsten Muehlenfeld, a former executive at Rolls Royce in Germany, will take over the reins. Muehlenfeld who had just left Rolls Royce and accepted a position with the train manufacturer Bombardier in February, agreed to take over as the new airport manager of BER instead of working for Bombardier.

http://www.thelocal.de/20150223/ex-rolls-royce-exec-takes-over-ber-airport

Berlin Brandenburg Airport declared too small

Another bombshell in the ongoing BER boondoggle is that the airport that hasn’t even opened yet has already been called “too small” to handle the expected air traffic. Planners say that they underestimated the number of passengers the airport would serve. In response, Mehdorn proposed last December to add another terminal. If approved, the additional terminal would serve an additional 8 to 10 million passengers and be located adjacent to the northern wing of the main terminal. It will now be up to Muehlenfeld to decide whether or not this possibility should be pursued. One of the main issues with a potential terminal addition is that the 6 million residents living in the airport area have previously rejected the idea.

Berlin Brandenburg Additional Costs

Estimated current total costs for BER amount to €5.4 billion. The planned additions would add €2.19 billion to that figure. But there is also talk of a third runway at the tune of an additional €1 billion and other new projects such as expanded baggage system and another freight facility. The total additional costs could amount to €3.2 billion.

 

For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on my home page and feel free to follow my blog about anything German: historic or current events, people, places or food.

Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.

 

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Posted in J. Elke Ertle, Tête-à-Tête, Walled In Berlin | Comments Off on Berlin Brandenburg Airport boondoggle