Pre-crisis level not until 2025 ?: BER Airport is struggling with heavy losses

Monday, January 4th, 2021

Pre-crisis level not until 2025?
BER Airport is struggling with heavy losses

After years of delays, the capital city airport BER will finally open its doors in October 2020. Technically everything is running perfectly. But due to the Corona crisis, there are far fewer passengers than expected. And that will probably not change anytime soon.

There will probably be little going on at the new BER airport, even in the first full year of operation. "We will have to cope with at least another year with considerable losses in the case of low passenger numbers," said the operator. Ten to eleven million passengers are expected in 2021, less than a third compared to the time before the outbreak of the Corona crisis. "But we would need around 20 million passengers just to cover the costs of ongoing operations," said airport manager Engelbert Lütke Daldrup. He does not expect the airport, which opened a good two months ago, to meet financial expectations quickly. "We will probably not reach the pre-crisis level again until 2024 or 2025."

The start of vaccinations could increase the demand for summer holidays in 2021. "The road to normality in flight operations is much further than we all wished and hoped for," said Lütke Daldrup. Because the proportion of tourists is higher in Berlin, BER could perhaps recover faster than large hubs like Frankfurt am Main and Munich.

In 2019, there were still just under 36 million passengers at the old Tegel and Schönefeld airports. In 2020 only 9.1 million passengers were counted at the two Berlin locations, around a quarter of the previous year's level. "The year 2020 was a year of extremes, it was a year of success and a horror at the same time," said Lütke Daldrup.

"The technical systems work"

After years of delays, Berlin Brandenburg Willy Brandt Airport (BER) opened on October 31. "The first two months have shown that the technical systems work," said Lütke Daldrup. There are hardly any delays and the feedback from customers and visitors has been positive.

"Our goal was to be in the black by 2025," added the airport boss. "Corona thwarted this calculation." The expansion of the airport, which had already been planned, was postponed and an austerity program with downsizing was started. One of the two runways at BER has been closed for four weeks. There are also plans to temporarily close Terminal 5, the former Schönefeld Airport.