Boss still confident
BER Airport continues to make losses
May 8, 2024, 6:24 p.m
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Three and a half years after it opened, Berlin-Brandenburg Airport is still in the red. Compared to other airports, BER performs poorly. However, management expects an improvement soon.
Berlin’s BER airport slipped deeper into the red last year. The bottom line is that the capital airport made a loss of 212 million euros in 2023 after a loss of 90 million euros in the previous year, as the operator FBB announced. The poorer performance is primarily due to profits from property sales that were achieved in 2022.
“Despite complex challenges, we achieved a good result that was above plan in the 2023 financial year,” said BER boss Aletta von Massenbach. This means that FBB is moving towards financial consolidation. Operationally, the group once again achieved a positive result, but with an operating profit (EBITDA) excluding special effects of 124 million euros, it fell short of the previous year’s result of 216 million euros. The financial situation remains tense due to the airport’s construction history.
In total, more than 23 million people traveled through Berlin-Brandenburg Airport in 2023, an increase of three million passengers compared to 2022. However, the recovery compared to the pre-Corona period is starting more slowly compared to many other German and foreign airports. For comparison: Before the virus pandemic, Berlin’s Tegel and Schönefeld airports handled almost 35.7 million travelers in 2019.
The operating company expects a general recovery in air traffic for the current financial year. The loss is expected to decrease to 164.3 million euros and EBITDA before special items to increase slightly to 129.6 million euros. Management is targeting an increase of seven percent in passenger volume, which would reach around 70 percent of the pre-crisis level of 2019. The group is thus lowering its expectations: At the end of the year, Massenbach had announced eight percent more passengers for 2024.