David Hasselhof sang Looking for Freedom from the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Threety-one years after David Hasselhof stood in the gap between East and West Berlin, Berlin Brandenburg became East's old airport. It is a reminder of East German-style planning. In 1997, requests for proposals were made to build the new Berlin Airport on the former East German Schnefeld. It took 23 years to complete and its budget was more than tripled to $8 billion.
Credit, Muns via Wikimedia Commons
The construction punch list grew to 550,000 items as the airport was built. The airport opened in its final form, but it was not right. Staff were receiving electric shocks, and the airport was closed down. The airport also had problems with overflowing rubbish bins and broken floor tiles. There were also issues with defective lifts and escalators.
The problems at the old East Berlin airport are still severe. The airport is at risk of going bankrupt and will run out of funds by the beginning of next year.
Aletta von Massenbach stated that we urgently need money and needed cash in the Saturday editions of the Tagesspiegel newspaper. FBB's main task is to get out of this crisis. In 2020, FBB suffered a loss of around 1 billion euros (or 1.16 billion dollars). FBB expects to suffer high losses over the next few years.
The money that has been spent on clean water has clearly gone elsewhere. This brings us to the second problem. It is unsafe to drink the water in Terminal 1 which hosts Lufthansa Group airlines, Air France, British Airways and easyJet.
From 2.11.21, passengers can purchase water at 50c in the duty-free zone of BER. BER Berlin Brandenburg Airport (@berlinairport) November 2, 2021
Are these two issues too closely linked? The airport will take a percentage of all bottled water sales. Stop selling water at security checkpoints, sell more water and address the fiscal gap. I'm not saying anything, I'm just saying it
