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Construction of BBI has started
By Sebastian Steinke
When Berlin's mayor, Klaus Wowereit met easyJet President Ray Webster in the marquee directly after the formal first cut of the spade for BBI in Diepensee, Brandenburg on 5 September, the politician forgot his good mood and lashed out: Webster had “declared war on me”, the peoples' representative snapped at him in fluent English.
The minute long dressing-down which Wowereit proceeded to give Webster referred to a campaign easyJet had launched only shortly before the BBI cut of the spade against the multi-billion mega-project. In the explanations for the press and at a separate press conference, the airline had surprisingly objected to all the construction plans for Schönefeld in the middle of the sensitive phase of the Berlin election campaign (from which Wowereit has since emerged as the winner). The BBI, Webster had said, was “bad planning”. The huge amount of investment would lead to rising charges, higher ticket prices and falling passenger numbers. Moreover, no business plan had yet been produced, from which he as a customer could assess the fees for use that would later be charged. The airport threatened to become a “bottomless pit” for the taxpayer and risked losing its most important customer group, the low-cost airlines. The European Low Fares Airlines Association (ELFAA) went on to broadly support this criticism.
Up to now Schönefeld has been one of the Berlin and Brandenburg success stories in the matter of attracting new business and a shining example of the benefits to be gained from the two Bundesländer working together. The airport is flourishing, not least thanks to new low-fare airlines like easyJet, which now maintains an important base by the River Spree and draws huge numbers of tourists to Berlin. Mayor Wowereit had personally once shown Ray Webster around what at the time had been Berlin's almost empty third airport and had helped to initiate the revival which got under way there after years of decline (see FLUG REVUE 1/2004).
Today low-fare airlines are already responsible for over half the volume of Berlin air travel and, according to studies carried out by the airport operating company, should in the long-term settle down at around two-thirds. For this reason their special needs for low handling charges and rapid turnarounds are also important to the success of BBI's design.
In a background interview with FLUG REVUE directly before the ceremony, Ray Webster had spoken of his reservations as to whether the design of BBI, for example, with a new 4,000m long southern runway for intercontinental flights, would not create costs which he would later have to pay without ever being able to fully utilise the infrastructure. Webster suggested that traditional scheduled airlines should be surveyed again about their requirements, with a view to building them a solution tailored to their needs but much smaller and less expensive. On the other hand, easyJet itself would prefer to stay in the so far unchanged northern part of Schönefeld and continue to operate from there on favourable terms even after the opening of BBI.
The British seem to have assumed, albeit without any legally binding commitment, that they would continue to be able to use the northern part of Schönefeld in the long-term. On the other hand the line which the airport operating company is pursuing is becoming clearer and clearer: namely, their intention is to concentrate all the air traffic of Berlin and Brandenburg under the “one-roof concept” not simply in a single location, BBI, but also under a single roof in the new terminal to be built on the southern side.
Ray Webster complains, “BBI will be an airport the size of Düsseldorf but without the Ruhr area in the background. Berlin is destroying its most successful airport concept yet in Schönefeld. There are only two successful airport types for low-cost airlines: either you follow London Luton and Liverpool, which are only used by low-cost airlines, or else, as in Paris Charles de Gaulle, you build a separate terminal for no-frills operations like the Terminal 3 which we use there.”
So are the investors – the federal government, Berlin and Brandenburg – deliberately building a new airport at odds with the market? In response to a question from FLUG REVUE, Joachim Hunold, CEO of Air Berlin, stated, “We see BBI as an airport built at the right time and designed to meet demand. Of course it is possible to handle low-cost flight operations here as well. If Mr Webster doesn't like it, he should leave. We will be happy to take over his passengers.”
One cannot deny that the BBI planners have made allowances up to a certain point for the needs of low-fare airlines. Thus, for example, vaguely recalling London Stansted, the six-storey main terminal with its own underground S-Bahn, regional and main-line station is to be equipped not only with 80 check-in counters, but also with 200 additional, multi-purpose check-in machines which will reduce the handling costs. Next to the main building there will be a 620m long pier with 16 passenger bridges which is now to be extended by an angular addition with 10 spaces for ramp boarding on foot, which is especially popular with the cost-conscious low-cost airlines.
In the initial phase the terminal, which will open at the end of 2011, will be designed for 22 to 25 million passengers per year. If one extrapolates from the present, fast rising volume of 17 million passengers in Berlin to the year of the opening, even at the start of operations there will be little spare capacity so that, hopefully, the airport can operate at a profit.
Further extensions, such as lengthening the L-shaped pier into a U and adding two large satellite terminals on the ramp, should in the long term enable additional growth up to a maximum of 40 million passengers per year. The word “large airport” to describe BBI has therefore been long deleted from the vocabulary of the Berlin Brandenburgers.
As well as more of the classic, European scheduled traffic, they are specifically aiming for additional long-haul flights. Here, the capital city region, which at present is clearly undersupplied, could benefit from its relatively eastern location. An airline from the booming Middle East or Far East flying from Asia to Europe can cut out at least one hour by stopping at Berlin, from where it could conveniently offload its passengers into the EU route network. But it is also clear that, as an airport, Berlin will not be a second Frankfurt Rhine-Main, but rather a “small Munich”.
As the airport operating company points out, the entire airport will be built “in the industrial architecture style” “at an attractive cost” and will be “functional”, i.e. it is not being designed as a prestige project for the capital city. As Mayor Wowereit warns, “BBI will be neither a marble palace nor a corrugated-iron hut. We will prove that three public contracting bodies can build to the planned budget.” BBI Technical Managing Director Thomas Weyer adds, “The building costs are below the level of comparable projects. And we have already taken the need for low operating costs for the terminal into account in the plans.” Rainer Schwarz, the new CEO of the Berlin-Brandenburg airport holding company and previously the Director of Düsseldorf Airport, is viewed, moreover, as a proven expert in the “non-aviation business” area, such as rows of shops, conference centres and offices which these days are significant revenue generators for the airports.
The cost of the new BBI airport, which at present is expected to be at least Euro2 billion, is being financed by Flughafen Berlin Schönefeld GmbH (FBS), the operating company, which has a equity share of Euro440 million. FBS's shareholders, Berlin and Brandenburg, are each contributing a further Euro159 million and the Federal Government is providing Euro112 million, adding up to a further Euro430 million. Apart from FBS funds, the rest of the capital required, over Euro1 billion, is to be covered by loans. Loans in excess of Euro350 million have already been agreed with a banking consortium consisting of Commerzbank, Helaba, the KfW (Credit Institute for Reconstruction), the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Landesbank Berlin and Landesbank Brandenburg. However, credit fees and interest charges are not yet included in the calculations.
The airport project is also receiving a significant boost from the Government in connection with the construction of the rail link and the two-platform underground railway station in the terminal: of the estimated cost of Euro636 million, the Federal Government is taking on the lion's share of Euro576 million. Berlin and Brandenburg are each putting up Euro30 million and have committed themselves to ordering services from the railway for 20 years at prices which cover the costs. Four special airport trains will leave every hour for the new Berlin Central Station, only 20 minutes' travel time away. Then there will be two S-Bahn lines arriving at 20-minute intervals. One additional main-line connection would be technically feasible.
Without a doubt, airports are “job machines” which create large numbers of new jobs. The responsible German public labour agency, the Bundesagentur für Arbeit in Schönefeld, told FLUG REVUE that the BBI building works alone will create some 7,000 jobs which will definitely benefit local businesses and employees. The airport operating company expects that, in addition to the present 33,600 airport-related jobs in Berlin and Brandenburg estimated by itself and also by the Cologne-based transport expert, Professor Herbert Baum, BBI will create a further 39,400 indirect jobs in the region by 2012. On the other hand the Berlin airports themselves expect that, after waves of recruitment in the last few years, the effect of concentrating three locations into a single airport by 2011 will be for the number of persons employed directly to either stagnate or else to fall slightly due to people retiring and not being replaced.
The building work has already begun. New road embankments and bridges, cable conduits and extensive drainage plant herald the arrival of the forthcoming mega-project. By the next Berlin Air Show, which will run from 27 May to 1 June 2008, roadworks, cement works, underground station, railway track and taxiways will all have been tackled. After that, construction of the main terminal and the service roads will commence. According to current plans, trial operations will begin in May 2011, and on 30 October 2011 BBI will open the same day that Tegel closes.
From FLUG REVUE 11/2006
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