Flight Cancelled - The Berlin Airport Fiasco | People & Politics

the traffic signs on the outer bands sum it up Berlin's mega project is on indefinite hold after all the preparations and anticipation the disappointment is all the greater the Capitals brand-new International Airport shared with the surrounding state of Brandenburg is still far from clear for takeoff the opening date for the new facility has now been postponed four times will the airport be up and running by June 3rd 2012 yes it will be ready after intense consultation we have come to a date March 13th of next year it might be March 17 or the 17th of whenever we'll have to wait and see the date produced by the plan is October 27 2013 it smooth doesn't tighten but that new deadline won't be met either construction work is at a virtual standstill for those responsible it's now a strict policy of no comment and no commitment I need to mean fog is we can't name a date at the moment mr. Aman made that clear enough it will be discussed by the Supervisory Board but based on what we've experienced so far more steps need to be taken before we can announce a new date Franz Joseph slavka is a project manager experienced in massive construction tasks his job includes writing inspection reports when the timeline can't be kept with projects like this the completion date is absolutely sacrosanct it's normally chosen for political reasons and everyone is forced to accept the targets people often aren't honest enough with themselves to say no we can't do that it's all neat the delays stem from here connects foster house and south of Berlin the local planning authority coordinates all aspects of the building site it has up to four staff processing applications and permits they've worked on more than 200 for the airport so far the principal problem has been the fire safety system the cable ducts were found to be too small and some blueprints were either faulty or missing completely a special Parliamentary Committee in Berlin is trying to bring order to the chaos we're talking about faults throughout the entire building when you walk through it it might appear completed but when you take a closer look you see areas where preparation for new construction work is taking place all over the site because I'm too bored at scene even multi-billion euro public projects can often lack expertise at management level politicians aren't engineers their political power political clients are political in their responses and private sector bosses based their decisions on their budget the final objective is always in mind while politicians behave according to their political objective these are two totally different situations it's not the only public building project in Germany to run into trouble the Arab Philharmonic concert hall in Hamburg has seen costs balloon the new railway station in Stuttgart has suffered delays after public protests and cost increases and the headquarters of Germany's intelligence services in Berlin has been plagued by one mishap after the next big projects like this shouldn't be given to politicians they don't have the time to focus on them properly that's it it is a bit embarrassing a major European capital not managing to build an airport they say it'll open in 2014 I won't believe that either they'll probably close it down Berlin mayor Klaus Vova right has rejected calls that he resigned from office but he has stepped down from the Supervisory Board relinquishing formal responsibility for the airport if he hadn't often either of these thoughts there's going to be a change in the supervisory board the chair will move from Berlin to the state of Brandenburg as in Sofia this is not about taking responsibility it's just an attempt to shift the focus to someone else the mayor is trying to stay out of the line of fire politicians have failed to perform as competent supervisors in future key positions for the airport's construction will be filled by experts you

Channel: DW News

Views: 16,665

Rating: 4.8933334 out of 5

Keywords: airport, berlin, brandenburg, ber, delay, fiasco, wowereit, people and politics, dw, deutsche welle

Id: ELOoTemPdKc

Length: 5min 30sec (330 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 11 2013