LB5132 Assignment 1: Stakeholders, Delays, and PPP in Airport Project

This report analyzes the Berlin Brandenburg Airport project, addressing key stakeholders, their roles, and the reasons behind the project's significant 10-year delay. The major stakeholders included the states of Brandenburg and Berlin, the German federal government, the FBB company, passengers, media, and investigation parties. The delay was primarily caused by construction errors, scope creep, and problems in leadership. Construction errors included various infrastructural defects, while scope creep involved uncontrolled changes to the project's scope, leading to design modifications and cost overruns. Leadership issues, including frequent changes and alleged corruption, further exacerbated the problems. The report then explores how Private-Public Partnerships (PPP) could have improved the project's execution, leveraging private sector expertise for better quality, timely service provision, and effective resource management. The implementation of PPP contracts could have potentially mitigated construction errors, delays, and ensured better project outcomes.

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SUBJECT CODE LB5132 Multinational Corporations and International Markets
STUDENT FAMILY NAME Student Given Name JCU Student Number
TRUONG QUANG THUAN 1 3 9 1 8 2 8 2
ASSESSMENT TITLE Assignment Task 1
DUE DATE 13 Aug 2021
LECTURER NAME Dr Salman Ali Hyde
TUTOR NAME Dr Salman Ali Hyde
Student Email: [e-mail]
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TRUONG QUANG THUAN Submission date 11 Aug 2021
1/ Who were the major stakeholders in this Airport Project and what were their roles?
Major stakeholders Roles
The states of Brandenburg and Berlin -The BER is managed by both Brandenburg and
Berlin states.
-The airport will bring benefits to Berlin and
Brandenburg’s authorities and citizens, especially
the tourism industry.
-The German federal government -Responsible for the aviation administration.
-Planning consents, operators
-System regulator.
-Subsidising.
-The FBB company (Flughafen Berlin
Brandenburg)
-Responsible for overseeing construction,
operating and maintaining the BER
-The passengers. -The amount of passengers and their evalutions
decide the revenues and successful of the BER.
-Medias. -Present related information of the BER publicly,
both negative and positive, as well as true and
fake news, which also affects the reputation of
BER.
-Investigation and quality-checking party. -Checking quality standards of facilities and
infrastructure.
-Investigating problems and failures
-German Federal Administrative Court -Reject/Approve the operating permission of the
Brandenburg Airport.
2/ What were the main reasons contributing to the 10-year delay in inauguration?
The Brandenburg airport hasn’t opened until October, 2020, due to a large number of problems that
have resulted from construction errors, problems in leadership, and scope creep.
a/ Construction errors.
The most obvious factor that prevented the BER from opening and operating was the facality
and infrastructure’s quality. The airport encountered huge construction errors. Reports indicate that
66,500 defects were found, 34,000 are described as “significant” and 5,845 as “critical” (Antonio Nieto-
Rodriguez, 2017). They inlcuded fire safety issues, automatic doors that didn't open and sagging roofs,
installed cables were dangerously weired… (Kinkartz, 2020). These construction erros shows the lack of
oversight and inexeprience leadership, as well as problems in transparency.
b/ Scope creep.
According to Ray (2021), scope creep happens when changes are made to the project scope
without any control procedure, which affect the project schedule, budget, costs, resource allocation and
might compromise the completion of milestones and goals. CEO of FBB company, Rainer Schwart, who
later fired in 2013, asked for changes in the design of the airport… from rectangle to a “U” shape. He

also requested a second level be added to the airport – to accommodate a shopping mall, which. The
decision resulted in a long list of issues including a redesign, changes to material and resource demands,
safety concerns, along with the need to find retailers for the new second level (Hammer, 2015). As a
result, the BER received cost overruns, schedule delays, missed openings, a frustrated public, and deep
mistrust in the leadership of the airport project.
c/ Problems in leadership.
Last but also the most important reason for the failure of the BER is the leadership. The
excessive changes in the leader positions while delays and scandals still continue was a significant
problem that created inconsistency and unstability in leadership. From 2013 to 2017, many high-level
and important positions in the project were made to change by many reasons (Macola, 2021). Some
were accused of pretending that there were no problems during construction, even as the situation
grew worse. Some were fired and investigted after accepting bribes. Even some employees faked their
working position. This situation shows that there are many problems in the leadership of this airport
project that significantly leads to many negative conseuquences.
3/ Based on what you have learnt about Private-Public Partnerships, how could this project have been
executed better?
The failure of the project mainly comes from many reasons. One of them is the FBB’s board
lacked the knowledge to lead the project. The FBB company is owned by is owned by the German states
of Berlin and Brandenburg (37 percent each), with the remaining shares being held by the Federal
Republic of Germany . Therefore, a possible solution may help this project could have been executed
better is the Private – Public Partnerships (PPP) contract. In a PPP procurement, the public and private
sectors join to collaboratively design, fund, build, manage or maintain projects (such as infrastructure
projects). Therefore, the responsibilities and risks will be allocated to both parties (public and private
sides). The most important factor that enables PPP to be considered as a great solution is that, private
sector expertise and experience are utilized in PPP projects implementation, which ensure higher quality
and timely provision of public services as well as more effective public resources management.
Moreover, the private entity is granted the opportunity to obtain a long-term remuneration, which
encourages them to work effectively to complete the project as their best. As a result, high quality
infrastructures, facilities and services are ensured, while delays and construction errors will be
eliminated to the minimum level.

References
[1] Hammer, J. (2015). The Story Behind Berlin’s $6 Billion Airport Embarrassment.
https://skift.com/2015/07/23/the-story-behind-berlins-6-billion-airport-embarrassment/
[2] Macola, H. (2021). Berlin Brandenburg Airport: a construction timeline.
https://airport.nridigital.com/air_feb21/berlin_brandenburg_airport_construction
[3] Nieto-Rodriguez, A. (2017). Notorious project failures - Berlin airport: Why did it go wrong?.
https://www.cio.com/article/3185909/notorious-project-failures-berlin-airport-why-did-it-go-
wrong.html
[4] Ray, S. (2021). What Is Scope Creep and How Can I Avoid It?
https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/5-ways-to-avoid-scope-creep