Berlin's 'new' BER Airport: A story of incompetence and corruption | DW News

by now almost everyone has heard about berlin's disastrous off-budget over-scheduled new airport but few know the real story about what went wrong for years now i've been following the saga of berlin brandenburg airport international code ber how could such incompetence and corruption happen here in germany a country famed for its efficiency why did it take berlin 12 years and more than six and a half billion euros ten times the original budget to finish this airport here's the full story of what went wrong at ber when planners began working on the new airport concept back in the 1990s they drew up a list of seven possible locations politicians picked the bottom of the list schonefeld airfield 16 kilometers from the city centre a whole village had to be relocated to make way for the new terminal a district was constructed with hundreds of homes for the displaced residents at a cost of 80 million euros elsewhere almost 10 percent of the budget of the airport has been spent noise-proofing homes under the flight path no night flights are allowed here and there's no room for expansion any of the other locations would have been wiser the architect who designed ber hates airport shopping meinhart von gurkan is the star architect of berlin he wrote a book in which he raged against the multiplication of airports most passengers have no desire to buy anything why should i have to drag around two bottles of overpriced whiskey in a plastic bag like a beggar meinhard van gerken and his partner designed berlin's old much-loved tegel airport back in the 1960s four decades later they were commissioned to build this new airport but gurkhan purposely minimized the number of shops in ber modern airports need shops to pay the bills the plans had to be redrawn on the fly to make room for hundreds of extra duty-free shops and cafes nine months after construction had started the city's politicians realized the new airport would be too small they ordered a redesign with 65 more floor space the city's mayor demanded new boarding gates for the giant a380 aircraft even though no airline had ever said they wanted to bring the giant planes to berlin hundreds of significant changes were made to the plans but many of these significant changes were made after the main structure had already been built results-based building contracts were torn up contractors began charging by the hour instead of by the job ber became a bottomless money pit smoke extractors sprinklers emergency communications all were designed for a much smaller airport and they failed crucial safety tests in 2012 just before the planned opening a review found that ber was only 56 service ready the proposed solution was called a human machine interface hundreds of workers were to stand guard around the clock to watch for fires and operate emergency doors politicians approved this plan they were busy getting ready for a grand opening party to be attended by chancellor angela merkel with a live tv coverage it took one regional bureaucrat to stop the nonsense he refused to sign the crucial safety certificate with weeks to go the grand opening was cancelled ber was declared a failure ber has been built twice the first time badly the second time slowly after the 2012 cancellation more than 150 000 errors were found on site builders had to renovate a brand new construction thousands of kilometers of cables had to be torn out and reinstalled hundreds of fire safety walls were torn down and rebuilt lightning rods were installed for the first time builders said they spent much of their time doing nothing at all here's what one insider had to tell us if you want to do nothing it was relatively easy if you want to do a lot you could try in the end the plant changes again or ber became a hotbed of criminality workers were stealing material such as copper for instance many people were doing business out of it cutting cables and selling in the market nobody's controlling you you can make an extra salary one manager took a bribe of half a million euros to hand out a contract another manager was caught taking 150 000 euros in cash in a parking lot from a company despite the billions of euros wasted no one has ever said sorry for any of the mistakes berlin's former mayor klaus volvorite was head of the supervisory board during most of the disasters and ordered many of the changes he said it wasn't his fault reiner schwartz was ceo for many of the mistakes he was later fired but he sued and won a payout worth more than a million euros three other ceos followed only one has managed to finish the job after nine years of construction the new airport is finally opening but some say the biggest disaster could be yet to come the coronavirus pandemic has cut air traffic by 70 percent and blown a huge hole in the budget some fear that the airport company could go bankrupt so how did it all go so wrong after years of covering the ber saga i think the biggest mistake was the unquestioning belief in the myth of german efficiency nobody noticed any of the problems until it was too late few thought such mismanagement was even possible here ber now stands as a monument to the mistake of believing in myths you

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Length: 7min 13sec (433 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 30 2020