Back around twenty years ago....an intense debate came up in the Berlin region over airports. The future strategy was going to be laid out with three particular stances:
1. A new mega-airport would be built and referred to as BER....within a 20-minute S-Bahn ride of Berlin-City.
2. Tempelhof Airport would shut down (quickly, as in 2008).
3. Tegel Airport would be shut down when BER was fully operational and functional.
All of this left Schonefeld Airport in some limbo.....with most folks thinking it would either close entirely, or be left as some VIP airport (distinguished guests).
Today, it came up in Focus news that the Minister of Transportation (Dobrindt) is supposed come over and have a long chat with the Berlin authorities. There's this new rumor coming around....Tegel staying open and getting money for a major renovation (after BER opens).
Tegal, if you go and read Berlin city news....is planned out for closure and tons of public works projects are figured for the airport area. It'll be some new technology center for the city.
Dobrindt is supposed to sit down with the operators of Tegel and discuss this on Wed of this week. If you read through the journalist commentary....a lot of movers and shakers for the airport and the city will be at this meeting.
One might sit and think that Dobrindt is going to ask what phase two of BER (to enlarge it to meet the goals and needs toward 2030) is about, and if Tegel ought to be kept around until phase two is complete (the BER folks haven't shown themselves to be that capable). Everyone seems to agree that BER will need another terminal added over the next decade....to meet the needs of the public in Berlin.
Putting some federal and state funding (say 250 million Euro) into fixing Tegel up to be around to 2035? It might not be such a big shocker if they were going to lay out some idea like this. The plans folks might be very unhappy because their massive tear-down-and-deliver project would have started in three years....probably being done by 2025. But the confidence to go and deliver a second terminal onto BER? I'm guessing it's not there.
I'm one of those people who think that BER, Tegel, and Schonefeld will all be around in twenty years....still operational. With a population of 3.5 million and the believed arrival of 100,000 new residents every single year....there's not much reason to close Tegel or Schonefeld anymore. Maybe if they had some high-speed ultra-train that ran from Berlin to Frankfurt's airport in 90 minutes (the current time is 4.5 hours)....there would be a decent option to just run BER alone, and let Frankfurt continue to grow at the pace it's done for twenty years.
Anyway, you might want to tune in on Wednesday night and see how this meeting went in Berlin, and if any shockers were laid on the table.
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