“I am a Berliner!” Mayor Willy Brandt is pictured on June 26, 1963, with German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (r) and John F. Kennedy (l) in an open car moving toward The Berlin Wall, where the U.S. President delivered a speech to a crowd of some 300,000; it included a sentence that still resonates in a much-changed world.
“Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was ‘civis romanus sum,’—I am a Roman citizen", Mr. Kennedy said.
     “Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is ‘Ich bin ein Berliner!’
     “All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner!’” JFK declared. Those words electrified the world (and no, he did not call himself a “jelly donut”).
     Last week marked 50 years since then, and as the "freedom bell" tolled at the former West Berlin City Hall, students from Berlin's John F. Kennedy School read speech excerpts in German and English.

illy Brandt served as Chancellor of Germany from 1969 until 1974.
But Brandt came to political life and world fame as Mayor of Berlin from 1957 until 1966; at that time, the city was the foremost frontier of the Cold War.
During the Willie Brandt era, the dreaded Berlin Wall was erected (1961) and Checkpoint Charlie was as well known in many parts of the world as Volkswagen.
     But when it comes to airports, naming that yet-opened colossal boondoggle Berlin Brandenburg Willy Brandt Airport may be an omen and portent of things to come.
     Now airport builders, politicians, city fathers, and many other possibly well-intentioned people have branded their dream airport after a man who refused to take some good advice; apparently, they’ve followed his lead in that respect.
     As July 2013 begins, despite opening the gateway for a few air cargo flights, the handwriting may be on the wall for the initial success or failure of BER. But if it’s like the wall Berliners eagerly tore down upon reunification, then unfortunately, no one got the message.
     Brandt was born in 1913 in Luebeck, Germany, as Herbert Karl Ernst Frahm.
     “Willy Brandt” was a cover name Brandt adopted in 1934 while living in Norway in the anti-Nazi underground. Brandt’s politics and policies had always been controversial, and he eventually was elected Chancellor of Germany, but was forced to step down in May 1974 after reportedly ignoring early warnings from German intelligence that one of his closest advisors, Guenter Guillaume, was a Soviet agent.
     Fast forward to 2013 as the prospect of opening a new airport for Berlin (BER) draws closer (or maybe not), whilst wondering how things have become so badly screwed up.
     By examining a timeline of how a new airport for Berlin has developed, we might better understand how things went wrong.
     One thing is clear right away.
     Many intelligence forecasts were made and advanced by some pretty smart people at the early planning stages of BER, even before the first shovel of dirt was turned.
     Politicians and nearly everyone else ignored these warnings, just like Willy Brandt ignored dire warnings of a spy in his government.

     Berlin’s first airport was Tempelhof, an iconic place where history was made in the early days of aviation in the 1920s; as we all know, it also kept the entire city of (West) Berlin alive with cargo airlifts during the communist blockade in 1948-1949.
     Although now closed, since 2008 THF continues to be much loved and utilized as a center for Berlin City life with various urban related activities.
     Both the western part of Berlin and the eastern part (which was also the capital of the former “German Democratic Republic,” the Soviet satellite Germany) constructed new airports post WW II—Tegel in the West and Schoenefeld in the East.
     Immediately after German reunification, plans started for a single Berlin Airport to replace Tempelhof, Tegel, and Schoenefeld.
     The regional planning process in 1993 favored Sperenberg, a former Soviet military airbase within convenient distance to Berlin, but with ample distance to residential areas. However, political pressure led to a favorable decision for Schoeneberg, which in the initial planning ranked only seventh, mainly because of the close proximity to residential areas and the subsequent property costs associated with resettling the residents.
     Eventually, in May of 1996 the stakeholders (the state of Brandenburg where Schoenefeld is located, the city of Berlin, and the Federal Republic of Germany) agreed to build a new single airport on the premises of Schoenefeld and close down both Tegel and Tempelhof.


     In early 1997 the political stakeholders decided to award construction and operation for the new single Airport Berlin to a private operator.
     The German construction giant Hochtief won the related tender in 1999, only to have this award overturned by the Berlin Superior Court shortly thereafter because of procedural errors in the tender.
     Another attempt to privatize the airport-to-be was made in 2002 with Hochtief and IVG.

     This time, Rainer Schwarz, the former Berlin Airport CEO, Matthias Platzeck, Governor of Brandenburg State, and Berlin Mayor Wowereit abandoned the project because financial foundations could not be agreed upon.
     Ultimately, in excess of €45 million were paid to the Hochtief/IVG consortium to compensate for loss of the contract.


     Another round of tenders followed in which the qualification criteria were much lower compared to the first one, where only Hochtief qualified.
     When multiple bidders eventually qualified in the third round, illegal price agreements were suspected by the political stakeholders and the concept of awarding construction and operation of the new airport to a single contractor was eventually abandoned.


     Instead, bids were called for single lots of the airport’s construction, which were to be coordinated by the stakeholders represented in the airport company—Brandenburg, Berlin, and Germany.
     Construction was underway in September 2006, giving priority to infrastructure connections (railway and highway) and the new runways; construction of the main terminal started in 2008.
     At that time, plans called for an opening of the new airport in late 2010, which later on was postponed to June 2012.

     Soon, political stakeholders of all levels started to meddle with the agreed-upon proposals and plans.
     Retail space was deemed “insufficient” after a study outlined lower-than-anticipated ancillary revenue; as a result, the number of gates was cut back in favor of increased retail space.
     Also, the new airport was considered an important icon for the capital of Germany, Berlin, so the floor was upgraded from plain ceramics to 120,000 sqm of expensive Jurassic limestone to, we suppose, simulate the experience of walking on air.
     The plans eventually realized 15 aerobridges and 20 boarding gates, enabling the new Berlin Airport to handle about 25-27 million passengers a year, later on expanded to 40 million passengers a year.


     However, the year 2011 saw the two operative Berlin airports, Tegel and Schoenefeld, already handling in excess of 24 million passengers a year.
     While original calculations estimated the costs of the new Berlin Airport in the 1.7-2 billion Euro range, current cost calculations figure it will cost about 5.4 billion Euros just to get the already existing infrastructure functional.
     The costs of expanding the airport to levels where the anticipated 40-45 million passengers a year could be handled are not (yet) included.


     The opening of BER was postponed—this time indefinitely—in June 2012 after the Brandenburg fire protection authorities refused to sign off on core elements of the fire protection equipment in the BER terminal building.
     Sure enough German politicians, first in line Mayor Wowereit, MP Platzeck and German Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Peter Ramsauer, showed highbrowed surprise and were quick to demand “full investigations;” they also laid blame on airport planners and contractors, in particular, star-architect Meinhard von Gerkan.


     This time, however, even the German public, which has a notoriously short-lived memory for political issues, did not believe the statements.
     After the supervisory board of BER (which includes Chairman Mayor Wowereit, Vice-Chairman MP Platzeck and others, including Rainer Bomba, (left) State Secretary of the German Transport, Building, and Urban Development (representing Minister Ramsauer)) had fired the airport manager responsible for the oversight of the technical aspects and eventually Rainer Schwarz, the former Berlin airport CEO, as scapegoats (stressing vociferously that none of the pertinent issues had ever been duly communicated to the board members), they decided to bring Horst Amman on board, who had a successful track record of overseeing a number of large construction projects at FRAPORT, most notably the new runway Northwest, which opened in 2011.


     As FT reported earlier, attempts failed to bring in Wilhelm Bender, (left) former successful CEO of Frankfurt Airport, as a replacement for Schwarz after Berlin Mayor Wowereit and State of Brandenburg PM Platzeck broke confidentiality in negotiations. However, today Herr Bender continues to serve as a consultant to the project.
     In a related development, the Vice President, State of Brandenburg PM Platzeck replaced the President of the BER Supervisory Board, Mayor Wowereit, under allegations that Wowereit had misinformed the public about the construction-related problems.
     So now Wowereit has taken the seat of the Board’s Vice President.
     When German publications, notably DER SPIEGEL reported that both managers Mr. Manfred Koertgen (right) and Mr. Schwarz had communicated the issues which ultimately prohibited the opening of BER, Board Members pointed out that “they lacked the technical expertise to understand the full meaning of the briefings received” and that the former airport management had not used language plain and straightforward enough in such briefings.
     Such statements must be called fascinating at the least, coming from politicians charged with overseeing large infrastructure projects who abandoned full privatization of the project because of a promised, more cost-effective undertaking by the government itself.


     Horst Amman, put in charge during all of this for the technical aspects of BER Airport, went straight to work, but sidestepped delivering cloudy promises and pointing fingers.
     Amman instead undertook the task of making an inventory about what went wrong and possible corrective measures.

      Obviously, the answers he had to give the supervisory board weren’t much to their liking and seemingly contradicted the statements of the now new CEO of BER, Hartmut Mehdorn, former CEO of cash-strapped Air Berlin and notorious “sanitizer” of German rail monopolist Deutsche Bahn.
     Mehdorn is a manager best called “controversial.”
     His appointment here was thought in some quarters to have been made for his political connections and not for his successful track record.
     One story has it that AB minority shareholder Etihad Airways (whose financial contributions have helped keep AB afloat since AB had to sell off and lease back most of their assets under Mr. Mehdorn, including their aircraft, engines, and frequent flyer program) demanded relief from Mr. Mehdorn in favor of Austrian Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, a manager with proven air transport expertise.
     But to the point of BER, the German public radio station RBB reported that there was “notable dissent” between Mr. Mehdorn and Mr. Amman, adding that “Mr. Mehdorn has called for the sacking of Mr. Amman” because construction activity in BER has come to a standstill while Mr. Amman makes his inventory and investigates the shortcomings that led to the issues at hand.
     While the supervisory board of BER, notably Minister Ramsauer, (right) denied the RBB report and Mr. Amman himself called the RBB report “incomprehensible, I do not see the tablecloth between Mr. Mehdorn and myself cut,” it was felt that these denials were aimed at downplaying the issue, but not contradicting that some form of dissent exists between the fact-based technical manager Amman and the political appointee Mehdorn.


     Martin Delius (right) of the German Pirates Party, head of the BER airport investigation committee in the BER Senate, called recently for a clear commitment of the BER supervisory board to Mr. Amman, saying that “Mehdorn’s plans for a partial opening of the BER airport are not based in reality while Mr. Amman’s actions and timetable are.
     “If Mr. Mehdorn is the troublemaker he will have to go,” Mr. Delius went on to say.
     Various attempts by FT to get a comment on this from the BER airport management went unanswered.


     In a move not unheard of in politics, the now former BER Chairman of the Board and Mayor Wowereit blamed the architect of BER, Meinhard von Gerkan, for much of the issues relating to the indefinite postponing of BER airport and the cost overruns associated with the construction.
     Shortly before the latest attempt to open BER, when the first media reports about pertinent issues started to sprout, both Manfred Koertgen, then manager responsible for technical matters at BER, and the supervisory board unanimously decided to fire von Gerkan and drag him to court in order to claim €80 million in compensation for the delays and cost overruns.
      This, however, may not have been the smartest move for political stakeholders with a standing track record of not-so-smart moves; it seems obvious that whatever action an architect may have taken and whatever plans he may have drafted, ultimately everything had to be approved and put into action by the airport’s management and board.

In happier times, German architect Meinhard von Gerkan (L) with Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit (C) and Prime Minister of Brandenburg, Matthias Platzeck, (R) as they unveiled a poster of BER, June 2011.

      Von Gerkan, outraged at the accusations, wrote a book called Black Box BER, which was supposed to be published but was postponed after the new BER management put the lawsuit and the associated liability proceedings on hold.
      The publisher, Bastei Luebbe, comments that publication is “on hold at least until late August this year”, citing pending legal issues.
      Von Gerkan, however, made the text available to the German news magazine DER SPIEGEL, who promised “von Gerkan hitting back and getting his revenge” by giving a “noteworthy list of wrongdoings and wrong goings.”
      DER SPIEGEL quotes von Gerkan as saying “the artwork in BER seem(s) to be a fair indicator of the ‘lack of reality’ barometer of airport managers and supervisory board, in particular a flying carpet in the departure hall made from woven aluminum strings, which underscores the (airport management’s) belief in wonders and fairytales.”


      At 70-years-old, Von Gerkan, who oversaw the construction of Tegel airport (finished in 1974), is well respected, with works all over Germany. He called the associated construction work “without any issues and undertaken in great harmony between all stakeholders,” but then reportedly went on to say that “the delays and cost overruns (associated with BER Airport) were mainly due to a tsunami of change requests from the side of the former BER management and board.”
      Indeed, one issue that frequently came up when the BER facilities failed to qualify for the acceptance test was that the constructed facilities bore only some resemblance to the original plans drawn up by von Gerkan because of the numerous change requests from the stakeholders.
      It seems that both the former BER management and board approved of changes and implemented them without bothering to communicate such changes to the local authorities, which were tasked to approve—or reject—the work.
      Indeed the non-compliance with fire protection laws was reported in clear language from the Commissioner for the Dahme-Spreewald county months ahead of the planned opening date.


      “A main reason for this disaster is the huckster mentality of the airport stakeholders,” said von Gerken, adding “their intentions made the airport building a giant sales mechanism with coffee shops and retail fashion, misshaping a functional building to a mall with airport access.
      “Why passengers should carry overpriced whiskey around in a bag like bums escapes me—in Tegel, all I put in were some paper stores, a souvenir shop and phone booths.
      “That made for a convenient distance of 20 meters from the taxi lane to the check in, all the comfort a frequent flyer really wants,” von Gerkan said.
      “There were several hundred change requests which ultimately resulted in the drawings not having much resemblance to what was actually built.
      “In developing nations, such illegal practice may be considered normal, but BER is on German, actually Prussian, territory.
      “The temptations of omnipotence on the side of the airport stakeholders should be rejected,” von Gerkan concluded.
      He summarizes that “architecture thereby is turned into a pool of failed realities, wishful thinking, and utopia.”

      The main reason that BER cannot pass its mandated acceptance test is the complexity of the fire protection system, which covers numerous floors, 75,000 sprinklers, 16,000 smoke detectors, 3,400 flaps in air vent channels, and allows for a smoke-free zone within 15 minutes of activation.
      For this to happen, 3.4 million cubic meters of air must be moved through underground exhaust ducts, (a system never tried beforehand) because the roof of the terminal building, for design reasons, could not accomodate any exhausts or chimneys.
      Since neither the computer equipment nor the complex cabling is currently able to handle the specified tasks and since plans and key personnel who were familiar with these issues have vanished in the woes following the failed June 2012 opening, it is incredibly difficult to track the exact specifications and come up with subsequent corrective measures.
      According to some German press reports published in March of this year, the eventual outcome of Mr. Amman’s assessment of the 20,000 different pending issues at the BER construction facility may even necessitate tearing down the greater part of the terminal building since a considerable part of the fire protection system was either not built to specifications or had none to speak of.
      The hands-on approach taken by the former BER management to pass the fire protection acceptance test was to place volunteers with radio communication equipment at the exhaust controls and fire doors and open these manually, a procedure flatly rejected by the fire protection authorities of the Dahme-Spreewald county.
      Probably the former airport management were the only ones surprised by such response; it seems unlikely that any liability insurance provider would have signed off on such a thing.
      Apparently both Mr. Koertgen and Mr. Schwarz face liability-related civil lawsuits regarding the cost overruns and other pending issues, for which they rely on the coverage provided by their D & O insurance—whether such insurance needs to cover gross incompetence remains to be seen.


      The new CEO of BER, Hartmut Mehdorn has repeatedly pledged a ‘little-by-little’ opening of the facilities, although this approach has been clearly rejected by all members of the supervisory board and the operators serving the Berlin airports.
      Whether it is feasible to operate anything on premises that have not yet proven the ability to pass the acceptance test is at least debatable.


      A much overlooked issue is that since the former BER management was adamant about opening on June 3rd, 2012, many passenger and cargo handling related companies as well as retailers had terminated leases in the vicinity of Tegel or elsewhere, hired on new staff, and dismissed staff who were not willing to commute to the new BER.
      The costs of these businesses have not yet been established (since BER is still not open), but the BER airport company will certainly face compensation lawsuits.
      Ironically, in his previous role as Air Berlin CEO, Hartmut Mehdorn was one of the first to demand €20 million as an interim compensation for AB’s losses relating to the delayed BER opening, since Tegel does not allow AB to incorporate a hub structure with other Oneworld members as planned.


      The new BER cargo center was actually completed on schedule since this fell under the responsibility of a private investor, Dietz AG.

     It could have been opened on time, had there been any traffic at the new airport. Since all cargo is already handled at Schoenefeld Airport, very few of the cargo center’s offices are being currently used.
     Torsten Jüling, Product Manager, Aircargo, Berlin-Brandenburg Airports, is soft spoken and somewhat self-effacing; the long and short of it is that he feels the opportunity for the soft opening of the air cargo facility will pave the way for a solid cargo operation in place when the airport opens.
     “Our new airport will provide logistics companies the opportunity to grow their business via a variety of domestic and international flights, direct motorway access and great connectivity to the growing regions of Eastern Europe as well as the rest of Europe."
      Mehdorn proudly told German newspaper DVZ that the new cargo center would be opened July 3rd and fully operational “in early August,” by which time the entire cargo handling on the north side of the existing Schoenefeld facilities will be terminated to allow for much needed structural repairs.
      In a letter from Mehdorn to the cargo companies in question, he called this a “challenging task,” according to DVZ; however, the majority of belly cargo is still handled in Tegel and the integrator operations will remain in Schoenefeld. The monthly volume handled in the new cargo center will likely not exceed 100 tons per month.
      By comparison, Frankfurt Airport handled 100,000 tons in May 2013. After making the required repairs, the integrators will actually have ample expansion space in the Schoenefeld-North facilities.
      Also Mehdorn propagates opening the North pier of the BER, dedicated to low-cost passenger operations, a.s.a.p., with “two or three small carriers and maybe less than a dozen flights.”
      Mehdorn goes up against the strict objection from the stakeholders towards these phased-in plans by saying that he “just can’t see BER getting up to speed from standstill.”
      He also recommends the existing Tegel facilities remain open even after a BER full opening, pointing to the known capacity issues in BER, the waste of existing facilities (which have already been earmarked for university premises, technology development, research companies), although knowing full well that Tegel’s operating permit will automatically expire six months after the opening of BER, whenever this may be.
      The latter, interestingly enough, must be seen as a true achievement of German bureaucracy, since the previous BER management filed for expiration of the Tegel permit 6 months after the planned June 3rd, 2012, opening date; it was the hands-on approach of the authorities in question who changed this into a flexible date set six months after BER becoming operational.


      One thing is certain: BER airport will certainly have to expand and will provide good employment opportunities—within their legal department.
      Aside from the lawsuits related to compensation payments from the side of operators, handlers, forwarders, and retailers, and the yet undetermined liability issues, BER also faces harsh opposition from citizens in the neighboring areas, the greater Berlin area, and the European commission.
      Just like in Frankfurt, noise is a big issue in Germany.
      On April 25th, 2013, the Higher Administrative Court of Berlin ruled the noise protection program of BER to be insufficient.
      The verdict called the BER airport noise protection program “insufficient and contradicting regulatory requirements.”
      This means that in the opinion of the court, not enough compensation is paid by the airport for noise reduction measures, such as alternating flight routes and paying for better noise insulation for affected homeowners.
      Airport noise may not exceed 55 db/a in the 14,000 dwellings affected.
      The original program implemented by BER management budgeted €139 million but had already been increased to €444 million in 2012 to cover that expense.
      A further investment of €286 million is needed to satisfy the minimum requirements of the court’s verdict, for which an appeal was not permitted.
      These additional costs have to date not been included in BER’s planning costs.
      Mehdorn told the German press that he believed the court’s verdict to be the “premium on democracy” also stating “we should be happy for having to pay such a price.”


      It should be mentioned that just this past April Mr. Mehdorn added an engineer, Hany Azer, as part of a new working group program called "Sprint" BER Airport that is supposed to “sprint” things along towards getting the airport opened.
      Mr. Azer was formerly Chief planning officer for the highly controversial underground mega-rail station Stuttgart 21, another project where costs have exploded.
      Mr. Azer's former employer, Deutsche Bahn, confirmed that employment of Mr. Azer necessitated providing a maximum of personal security—something Mr. Amman never required.


      As if this wasn’t enough, the European Commission in Brussels has initiated formal proceedings against Germany because of the alleged violation of binding European Community Directives in regard to environmental laws when planning and constructing the BER airport.
      “As things are now, we would tell Germany that parts of its national laws are not respecting EC environmental requirements and thus we would expect Germany to change this in a way compliant with EC requirements,” a speaker of the EC outlined on May 29, 2013.
      The EC notified Germany back in January of this year that the flight paths to and from BER airport differed considerably from those previously discussed and no mandatory EC environmental assessment existed for those actually implemented.
      The routing through natural preserves and bird preserves would thus be considered in violation of applicable EC laws.
      The EC may challenge Germany’s non-adherence to EC standards in the Luxembourg EC court and/or impose monetary penalties until all EC requirements are complied with.
      In the meantime, the BER Airport construction facility continues to cost well in excess of 20 million Euros a month for maintenance, electrical power, and security.
      Costs for electrical power already exceed those of the operating airport Tegel while the Airports new CEO, Hartmut Mehdorn, continues to make the headlines.

      There is this wonderful comic bank robbery gone wrong, a fictional novel based on true facts, written decades ago by Jimmy Breslin and titled "The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight".
      Writing this story reminds us that while building an airport is by no means a walk in the Tiergarten, these people who set about creating BER have managed to screw things up better than anything else they did.
      “Much turmoil but no action” headlined German Manager Magazine on June 17, 2013, when commenting on a press conference at which BER management was to explain how—and if—BER airport construction was to continue.
      Mehdorn himself was absent at that presser, because of alleged “stomach issues.”
      Manager Magazine jumped on that issue, quipping:
      “Usually stomach issues are encountered by those who had to deal with Mr. Mehdorn.”
      So as July 2013 begins, hundreds of thousands who are tired of all this upheaval in the press and everywhere else are wondering: where is the airport?
(Stay tuned)
Jens/Geoffrey/Flossie

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