Confirmation came on Friday, that the opening of the new Berlin-Brandenberg Airport has been put off for again – this time for another seven months. The new target date: October 27, 2013.
According to a statement, the COO of Berlin Airport, Horst Amann, has “pressed the reset button in the area of building services,” assessed the situation and figured out what comes next. “Only such a fresh start can get the airport back on track towards a reliable opening date,” he said.
No one is happy about that. Certainly not Air Berlin, which sent out a message Friday afternoon from CEO Hartmut Mehdorn that said in part:
“We are still looking forward to our new home base at BER … It is regrettable that, following this decision, we will have to spend another summer season at Tegel. We were hoping that we would be spared this, particularly for the sake of our passengers. Tegel is already operating at maximum capacity and can hardly support further growth…”
BER was scheduled to open June 3, 2012, but shortly before the grand opening that date was pushed back due to problems with the fire safety systems. March 17, 2013 was set as the new date, but officials realized that wasn’t going to work either.
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