The BER debacle continues

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I had a flight booked to arrive there for late 2012! BA990 LHR to BER. It was switched back to TXL around 2 months prior, so wasn't exactly a surprise ;-) Have flown in and out of Tegel many times subsequently, and will likely get through there at least once more!
 
I had a flight booked to arrive there for late 2012! BA990 LHR to BER. It was switched back to TXL around 2 months prior, so wasn't exactly a surprise ;-) Have flown in and out of Tegel many times subsequently, and will likely get through there at least once more!

Flew into Tegel 2 times in the last couple of weeks, and once out, and once out of Schönefeld. Much prefer Schönefeld, Tegel is way past it's use by date.
 
Flew into Tegel 2 times in the last couple of weeks, and once out, and once out of Schönefeld. Much prefer Schönefeld, Tegel is way past it's use by date.

I was thinking exactly the opposite. Tegel was bearable but Schonefeld is absolutely miserable with long queues, limited seating options and one very bad PP lounge.
 
I was thinking exactly the opposite. Tegel was bearable but Schonefeld is absolutely miserable with long queues, limited seating options and one very bad PP lounge.


Actually the easyjet check in and arrival at Tegel isn't too bad as a quick fix. I would dearly have loved to have flown in and out of Tempelhof.
 
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The only Berlin airport I've used was an arrival at TXL in 2006 during my first round the world trip (Qantas SIN-FRA, AB FRA-TXL, train out of Berlin to the Netherlands a few days later).

Once they worked out the extent of the problems with the BER terminal, they should have just knocked it down and started over. Likely would have been quicker and cheaper then this years long comedy of trying to fix problems only to find more problems.
 
The sorry saga really just reinforces the German prioritisation of quality: in many places around the world the airport would have just been opened by a demanding politician, hang the problems. They would have tried to solve them incrementally whilst operating probably without a care that fire systems didn't work properly or that elements might be structurally unsound... Maybe that's just a larger appetite for risk in those 'other' countries. Or the convenient presence of appropriate fall guy(s) if the risk did manifest itself and something bad did happen.
 
The sorry saga really just reinforces the German prioritisation of quality: in many places around the world the airport would have just been opened by a demanding politician, hang the problems. They would have tried to solve them incrementally whilst operating probably without a care that fire systems didn't work properly or that elements might be structurally unsound... Maybe that's just a larger appetite for risk in those 'other' countries. Or the convenient presence of appropriate fall guy(s) if the risk did manifest itself and something bad did happen.

I have read, in several places, that Germany is very, very cautious about Airport Terminal fire safety because of the Dusseldorf Terminal fire in 1996 which killed 17 people. The fire precautions at the terminal were found to have been very poorly organised - if at all. So once the problems with the fire safety at the new Berlin Terminal were discovered there was no way it would be allowed to operate without upgrades.

 
Maybe light at the end of the (long, long) tunnel


I would be skeptical...

I just finished listening to the podcast series mentioned in the BBC article and found it really interesting and informative. I loved the part where they discovered there was an escalator with a passport control booth right at the end.
 
I would be skeptical...

I just finished listening to the podcast series mentioned in the BBC article and found it really interesting and informative. I loved the part where they discovered there was an escalator with a passport control booth right at the end.

That’s taking the usual a pile up of passengers at passport control a bit too literally.
 
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