Berlin Brandenburg to open

In spite of the pandemic Willy Brant Brandenburg Berlin International Airport (BER) is set to open Saturday 31 October.   It is about 10 years late.

A whole series of trials were planned for the summer but these are to be cut back.  The number of volunteers required has been reduced from 20,000 to just 9,000.

Prof Dr-Ing Engelbert Lütke Daldrup, Chief Executive Officer of Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg GmbH, said: “The corona pandemic not only poses new challenges for flight operations, but also for trial runs at BER. Health and safety are our main priority. This does not only apply to the test phase. Distancing and hygiene regulations in flight operations will probably be in place for a long time. Unfortunately, these conditions mean that we can only offer about half the planned volunteers the opportunity to get to know BER before it is commissioned. Nevertheless, we will ensure a sufficient test phase so that we can safely and reliably put BER into operation on 31 October.

“A new procedure with a reduced number of participants will be carried out. The reason for this is a requirement from the public health department according to which the number of participants, employees and volunteers, must be reduced. To ensure that all employees can become familiar with their new workplace, more trial runs will, therefore, be carried out exclusively with participants from the airport company and partner companies.”

www.btnews.co.uk

www.berlin-airport.de/en

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David Starkie, London

This is whole- hearted central planning whereby the four airports Berlin used to have after reunification have been consolidated into one. Note the contrast with London where 6 (and counting) competing airports serve the capital. Not only late but huge cost blow-out too.