With a nine-year delay and in the midst of the corona pandemic, the new BER airport will open on Saturday (2 p.m.). An Easyjet machine from Tegel Airport and a Lufthansa flight from Munich with their respective bosses Johan Lundgren and Carsten Spohr are to touch down at the new airport at the same time. Brandenburg's Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke, Berlin's Governing Mayor Michael Müller (both SPD) and Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) also take part in the opening.
BER: "Welcome to the airport family!"
In view of the multiple postponements, tripled construction costs, years of delays and the corona pandemic, there will be no official celebration. The first take-off with passengers checked in at BER will take place early on Sunday morning. An Easyjet plane is scheduled to leave the Northern runway for London Gatwick. On Wednesday, the "Willy Brandt" airport should be fully operational.
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"The opening is a reward for the perseverance and the great commitment of the colleagues at Berlin Airports," said Peter Gerber, President of the Federal Association of the German Aviation Industry (BDL), before the opening. "At the same time, the start of flight operations at BER in this pandemic-related deepest crisis in aviation is a positive ray of hope in difficult times."
The Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Verkehrsflughäfen (ADV), the airport interest group, also congratulated the opening: “Welcome to the airport family! We wish BER all the best for the future, ”announced the association. "For the battered airport industry it is a sign of confidence," said ADV CEO Ralph Beisel.
Climate protests at the airport in Berlin
But the first air traffic critics are already at the start of the new BER airport. For the opening of the airport, the members of the “Flight free 2020” group want to promote the fact that they fly significantly less. They set up their stand directly in front of the new Terminal 1 in Schönefeld on Saturday morning. "When a new airport opens, we have to be there," said Dimitri Molerov, spokesman for Flight free Germany. “Our aim is to encourage people to fly less and use buses and trains more.” To do this, the group collects signatures from supporters.
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At the weekend, climate protests from the “Stay on the Ground” initiative are also expected on the BER site. The group announced on Friday that they wanted to “massively disrupt” the opening ceremony with an action of civil disobedience. "We will block the opening of BER," said Lena Tucnak, one of the speakers. It cannot be that a new airport will be opened in times of the increasingly severe climate crisis.
There is also criticism from politics: The parliamentary group leader of the Greens parliamentary group, Anton Hofreiter, took the opening as an opportunity to once again remind of the financial difficulties of the airport company. “BER will continue to burden the public coffers of the federal government and the federal states of Berlin and Brandenburg heavily in the coming years,” he said.
Berlin Airport BER opens amid the crisis
The government terminal on the BER site has been in operation since last week. Another passenger terminal is ready, but due to the corona-related collapse in passenger numbers, it will not go into operation until next year.
However, the operators should not expect many guests in the coming weeks. Airport boss Engelbert Lütke Daldrup had recently expected only around 5,000 passengers on the opening day of the airport at the main terminal T1. With the Tegel closure a week later, around 16,000 passengers would be handled daily at T1. Another 8,000 passengers would then travel via Schönefeld Airport, which serves as Terminal 5 of BER.