Berlin Brandenburg Airport: A Tale of Failure

This article discusses the failure of the Berlin Brandenburg Airport construction project, which experienced continuous delays and challenges. It explores the reasons behind the project's failure, including issues with shareholders, construction delays, and faulty work. The article also highlights the impact of the project's failure on the city's economy and tourism.

Berlin Airport
Brandenburg Project
Failure

Table of Content
EXECUTIVE SUMMAY................................................................................................................3
ANALYSIS OF THE PROGRAMME............................................................................................3
CRITICAL EVALUATION............................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

EXECUTIVE SUMMAY
The Berlin Brandenburg airport was initiated in the year 1990 with the point of view of
incrementing the business, economic growth and better development of tourism sector of the
city. The plan was initiated with the objective of making a huge airport and extracting several
business as well as development opportunities for several sectors of Berlin, Brandenburg and
many other cities. Soon it was identified that project was becoming a failure with involvement of
several of resources financial and non financial as well as continuous postponing of the
launching date of the airport from the initial date that is October 2011(Fiedler and Wendler,
2016). The airport was actually launched in 2020 after 30 years of commencement of its
construction and development of the entire project.
ANALYSIS OF THE PROGRAMME
Berlin brandenburg airport, in the year 2006 the German government announced the
commencement of construction of a brand new airport in Berlin for replacing the old one known
as Tegel. The new airport was need to be named as Willy Brandt Berlin Brandenburg Airport
dedicated tu Ex chancellor of the federal republic of Germany and also the leader of social
democratic party of Germany. The company involved in management as well as construction of
the airport project is German company Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg GmbH denoted and
renowned as FBB. The new airport which was being panned and constructed was expected to
overtake as the third busiest airport in Germany after Frankfurt and Munich (Geraldi and Stingl,
2016).
In the very beginning when the airport was being constructed and the project was
commenced the opening date which was tentative and derived by FBB for initiation of the new
airport for october 2011 and the project became a failure as the project was still under
construction and were not being completed after 9 years passed from the expected
commencement date. Finally in the year 2020 on 31st October Berlin Brandenburg Airport was
opened for business. Around 30 years after the initiation of construction of the Berlin
brandenburg international Airport if started operated in the year 2020 due to to several scandals
and delays. The project was initiated in 1990 after the unification of Germany and a proposed
plan to build an airport for accommodating the needs of unified Berlin was made.

The shareholders involved in the projects was the city state of Berlin, the state of
brandenburg and the German federal government. These are shareholders of the airport after the
six years of its initiation rejected the initial plan of building a new hub for region and instant
opted for expanding the existing airport turning into Berlin brandenburg international Airport.
Thr chosen airport Schonefeld was the priority and the first choice because of its proximity to the
capital and the economic benefits which will be enjoyed by Berlin and brandenburg due to it by
making investments. Soon from the year 1997 to 2003 a series of negotiations in order to
privatise the entire tender took place and ultimately privatization was rejected and the project
was then given to Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg (FBB) for managing the airport and ultimately
making it another shareholder (Sedlin, Beckmann and Tan, 2020).
Through the evaluation and analysis it was identified that there were several reasons and
multiple aspects which continuously lead to the failure of Berlin Brandenburg Airport
construction plan. The work number of reasons due to which overruns made and the project was
continuously being compromise and postponed.
CRITICAL EVALUATION
There were several reasons and root causes due to which the project of Berlin
brandenburg Airport was the continuously feeling exhausted number of resources financial as
well as non financial in its construction. Finally after 30 years from its commencement the
airport was properly constructed and begin to conduct business. In this particular section of the
report the main reasons behind which caused overrunning and the various key issues of the
project will be discussed and elaborated. These common aspects are as follows:
The first and the very main reason which took the project to a downfall was failure of the
three main shareholders of the entire project effectively conduct the construction and processes.
Once the city state of Berlin, state of brandenburg and German federal government failed in
accomplishing their agenda and ultimately the project was privatised in the year 2003. It actually
represented that the project was not going to be completed by the 2006. In 2003 Flughafen Berlin
Brandenburg became the new managing company for the airport project and while conducting it
there were several delays that took place. At first in 2010 the airport corporation announced that
the ambitious deadline of October 2011 for inaugurating the airport cannot be made because of
of the bankruptcy of the construction can company that was planugsgemeinschaft Berlin
Brandenburg international and a new date was determined that was June 2012 (Müller, 2020).

Then second delay took place in the year 2012 in June because of up primary and most
difficult issue with the fire safety and more importantly with the smoke exhaust system that has
been built. The engineers the fire protection flaps had been installed without a permit and this
pushed the opening date to October 2013. Then in January 2013 the opening date was again
postponed to the year 2014 because of several personal changes taking place at FBB in both
voluntary and involuntary people. The CEO of FB was sent for packing and the board of the
corporation was running by two politicians who had no experience in regards to the airport
construction field (Kuester, 2019).
Except from these issues and problems every other problems as well which caused the
delay in establishment and commencement of the airport. All these are listed below:
 Incorrect installation of around 90000 metres of cable.
 Incorrectly number of around 4000 doors.
 Inappropriate check-in desks
 3000 smoke protectors went missing.
 750 display screens were being exhausted and need to be replaced before the airports
even opened.
 The flight parts and sound protection zones were calculated incorrectly.
 The emergency line to the fire department was faulty
 And the airport roof was it twice the weight which was actually authorised.
CONCLUSION
From the above report and analysis it is clearly represented that the failure of Berlin
Brandenburg Airport has been a worldwide embarrassment and save your hindrance for the
economic and tourism growth of the city. There were several collapse which took place during
the entire project and lead to it’s continuous failure and postponing the inauguration dates due to
incomplete and faulty work.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Fiedler, J. and Wendler, A., 2016. Berlin brandenburg airport. In Large Infrastructure Projects in
Germany (pp. 87-145). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Geraldi, J. and Stingl, V., 2016. From Visions of Grandeur to Grand Failure: Alternative schools
of descriptive decision theories to explain the Berlin Brandenburg. In EURAM 2016 (p.
2298). Academy of Management.
Kuester, C., 2019. Regional Planning and Politics in Berlin and Brandenburg. In Germany in
Transition (pp. 127-140). Routledge.
Müller, J., 2020. A case study of the politics of airport construction: The new Berlin Airport.
In Air Transport and Regional Development Policies (pp. 240-267). Routledge.
Sedlin, T., Beckmann, V. and Tan, R., 2020. Public Participation and Airport Development: The
Case of the Site Selection for Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) in
Germany. Sustainability, 12(24), p.10535.
Online:
Berlin Brandenburg Airport: a construction timeline, 2021. [Online] Available Through: <Berlin
Brandenburg Airport: a construction timeline (airport-technology.com)/>
FINALLY: New Berlin Brandenburg Airport Opens, 2020. [Online] Available Through:
<FINALLY: New Berlin Brandenburg Airport Opens | One Mile at a Time/>
The Sad Tale Of Berlin Brandenburg Airport, 2018. [Online] Available Through:
<https://onemileatatime.com/berlin-brandenburg-airport//>