What a Disaster! The Story of Berlin Brandenburg Airport.

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Have you heard of the term “German efficiency”? Well, this is NOT a term that applies particularly well to the development and launch of Berlin Brandenburg Airport. Stay tuned!
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Below you will find the links to videos and sources used in this episode.
Sources
• 1989: The Berlin Wall ...
• Berlin Airlift
• El aeropuerto berlinés...
• Berlin’s $7 Billion Ai...
• Flight Cancelled - The...
• Schönefeld 1989, Apron
• مطار حمد الدولي Hamad ...
• Berlin's new airport d...
• BER Airport | Episode ...
• BER Airport | Episode ...

[@MentourNow]

Check out the NEW MentourApp here: app.mentourpilot.com/ featuring "Aidan", your new AI co-pilot!

[@TarkMcCoy]

I can't get out of my mind the icons I would have programed into Aidan for while the plane is crashing!😂

[@mballer]

Which is the best airport in the world?

[@QuantumJump451]

Always remember though: A lot of people are aware that ChatGPT sometimes makes things up. The problem is that the actual reality is that ChatGPT and similar AI programs **ALWAYS** make things up, it's just sometimes the things they make up happen to be correct

[@javierfloresguerrero1753]

It will be really nice to see one video explaining about the cancelation of the new airport in Mexico City, full of corruption in all levels from Peña President and lower levels

[@MentourNow]

@@QuantumJump451 Yes, we actually talked about that in an earlier video. But our bot has been trained to talk about basically only things he knows. Feel free to try it out!

[@BerndGiegerich]

During the construction phase, we had discussions in Germany if it wouldn't be easier to move Berlin closer to an already existing Airport than continuing with BER :-)

[@pfefferle74]

I also loved the speculations that if they just blew up the BER with lots of explosives, the rubble might have a greater chance to come to rest as a functioning airport than the likelihood of it ever getting fixed by the project team.

[@C.Fecteau-AU-MJ13]

Is that... Is that a joke made in Berlin? Okay now I've seen everything.

[@g_pazzini]

how could they hired fake engineers? 😂😂

[@grahamstevenson1740]

If the train takes 30 minutes to get to the city centre, it can't be very close anyway !

[@nosuchanimal6947]

@@grahamstevenson1740 that just reminded me of the infamous speech by stoiber about a transrapid in munich connecting the airport to the central train station... kzbin.info/www/bejne/nGi3k6KNq7t4iLc btw: it doesn't matter if you speak german or not, that speech will make the same amount of sense to you either way :D

[@hyperthreaded]

A few years ago some developers from Berlin (I think) created a mobile game to commemorate the BER disaster, called "Airport Construction Manager" or something. The objective of the game was to build an airport using the maximum amount of public money possible. There was an endless string of problems and delays that kept coming up and you had to hire more and more external contractors with questionable reputation to fix them. I think the game was programmed in such a way that it was actually impossible to ever complete the construction.

[@tangiblewaves3581]

Oh yes, I remember!

[@naveedquadeer3752]

That is hilarious. For a sequel I suggest "High-Speed Rail Construction Manager" in honor of California's best efforts to replicate the Berlin fiasco.

[@MissySimpleM]

Ah man i can't find the game on google play. Would love to play that

[@NXTangl]

​@@naveedquadeer3752 How about one from the other side? "Social Media Tycoon" where you try to get as many people to leave your site as possible.

[@joeja]

@@MissySimpleM its called BER Bausimulator and is made by Steckenpferd Enterprises UG

[@leomannisto]

I was hired as a refueler at the BER in 2012. I remember the pilots complaining that the docking displays were too low during the test run. Then they raised the docking displays with concrete blocks and the tugs didn’t fit between the nose gear and the block. So they painted the stop lines further away. As a result the 737 couldn’t be refueled because the main gear stood on the fuel pit… Ended up refueling planes in Tegel 😂

[@narnigrin]

Jfc, that's clown shoes levels of hilariously bad.

[@PlaneSpottingBerlin]

omg :D

[@brkr78]

You really can't make stuff like this up...

[@thomasmichaelschwarz9741]

The logic of failure....😂😂

[@Happymali10]

Did nobody tell them that tanker trucks exist, rather than flying planes across town to refuel?

[@jonj-lab4633]

I worked on this airport. About 2 months before the summer 2012 opening date, it was discovered that there were no external phone lines running into the plant room of the terminal (someone tried to make a phonecall). I and many other Berlin entertainment industry types were brought in to drag multiple cables 2.6km through the train tunnel in double quick time to the station, whereupon other contractors took over. The station was indeed complete, but the escalators up to the terminal weren't. It was a joke. The land in front of the terminal entrance looked like the day after WW2, on the account that the storm water drainage on the whole site was done in too narrow a diameter of pipe, which caused the baggage area to flood several times in construction. So the whole lot had been torn up & replaced, and the landscaping hadn't even been started. The building's internal network cables were CAT 3 when CAT 5 & 6 were specced. The custom taps in the bathrooms wouldn't fit as they had a metric diameter pipe fitting (so there were no functioning passenger wash basins). Although Germany is a metric land, pipe diameters are still done in inches. That took 3 years to resolve. Then just after we'd finished there, they discovered that one of the head security guys on the contractors entrance (nice fella as it goes) was Germany's No.3 Al Queada terror suspect, so the whole site was shut down for a couple of weeks whilst the army did a fine tooth comb search of the entire site. Not that there were any good. Saw loads of people driving out with trees, shrubs and even a loo tied to their roof racks. No-one said a word! It's a diabolical passenger experience, especially arriving from a flight or to the airport by road. The only way Germany will recoup this money is to sell the film rights to this debacle.

[@TheAsheybabe89]

Berlin is a shit hole in general these days and your story is a great illustration. Probably would have been better off to stay separated. I doubt the DDR would have terrorist running security 😆.

[@FatVaderStudio]

​@@TheAsheybabe89you're right, they'd have the stasi or the notorious border guards running security, that would be soooooo much better

[@TheAsheybabe89]

@@FatVaderStudio well yes, yes it would. And I say that as a committed commie hater. Can you cite a case where Grenztruppen der DDR, VoPo, or Stasi plotted or succeeded in terrorism involving airliners or any other form of mass transit? 😏

[@PresidentScrooge]

The best part is if you are inside the building and its just cheap built all over. Like its not even remotely close to anything special. Just cheapest warehouse style construction you could find.

[@pguth98]

The no phone lines thing is crazy. I used to work in a new building that had a heated rooftop bar. The first winter we were open, the heating panels wouldn't turn on. All the electric was checked, and it was all connected up right. Just no heat. Finally, someone looked behind the panels, and found that the heating elements had never been installed. The polished concrete floors also immediately started cracking as the building settled.

[@Celeon999A]

I myself worked at the construction site of BER for a few weeks during the later stages. First thing ive noticed were a group of electricians from eastern Europe of whom sadly only one guy was speaking a bit german and english. (I believe they came from Hungary or Slovakia but cant tell for sure) They were basically pulling already installed network cables back out of the ceiling of the terminals. Ive asked them why they were doing this and that one guy who understood me and spoke a bit of german explained to me that the previous company which installed the cables did it all wrong. Wrong type of data cable, most of them without proper labeling or documentation so no one except them knew from where to where those cables were actually going. That previous company bascially only employed workers from several different temp agencies and in the end they lost their contract for incompetence. But that only after many months of work. The other company got hired to replace them and fix the mess that the others had done, which was an unbelievably cumbersome and time consuming work because of that sloppy documention. I also saw completely wrongly installed cables of the fire protection system in those opened ceiling, basically violating several different common norms for installation of such cables at the same time. Obviously whoever did that, also had no expertise in such type work whatsoever. To me this all looked like the tried to build that airport with the lowest bidders they could find. It obviously did not even matter if those companies had no expertise in airport construction. Its was more important that they were cheap and offered lots of manpower at the same time. That combined with equally incompetent management of that construction site was the perfect recipe for disaster.

[@MentourNow]

That’s terrible. Thanks for sharing

[@MatthijsvanDuin]

My neighbourhood had a similar thing happening with fiber installation... after work had stalled for quite a while, eventually a different crew started pulling out and replacing their fiber. I talked to one of them and it was for the same reason: previous company was incompetent and lack of documentation made the previously installed fiber basically useless.

[@DocHellfish]

I'm an American and even I know that's a job for a company like Hochtief.

[@evinnra2779]

My husband has an advice regards to cheep labor; if you paying peanuts, what you get is monkeys.

[@silverXnoise]

If I had to guess, I'd wager the original installers thought they could save money by purchasing non-plenum rated network cabling, which can be as much as 50% less per foot than the proper type. Every modern building code on the planet forbids it, but it's one of those things that's juuuust esoteric enough for the Dunnings and Krugers to overlook it when provisioning materials and looking for ways to pad their bottom line.

[@berlincoachdrivergoescreat8721]

Being a coach driver in Berlin, I would like to point out that the closest you can get to the entrance of BER with a full size coach is a distance of about half a mile. There is a large parking space for busses there, but with no roofs, no toilets basically "no nothing" for all shuttlebusses and long distance coaches arriving and departing at BER. Passengers have to walk that half mile outside past several hotels under any weather condition to get to the airport building. Last year I found myself basically stranded with one of my passengers, an elderly man with two huge suitcases and a walking disability. At 05:00 AM I tried calling a taxi from - "BER Terminal 1" - to - "BER Terminal 1" - which, of course, never came. The dispacher didn´t take my request seriously. Finally I could stop a taxi on my own and it was possible to get the my passenger to his flight. At the former Berlin airports, Tegel and Schönefeld, it was of course possible to stop directly in front of the building.

[@compactAIRtriq]

Arrived there last summer with FlixBus. It really feels like they added this bus "terminal" in the last minute. You even have to cross a wide road at a singalized pedestrian crossing. No roof is just mental considering it gets incredibly hot in the summer and just miserable when the weather goes bad.

[@alipezeshkpour8702]

Not to mention there are not even nearly enough trolleys in the Bus parking.

[@BerndFelsche]

Sounds like Arlanda, Stockholm back in the 1980's where passengers had to brave the weather between domestic and international terminals. Not so bad in October but a bit nippy in February, especially if you're lugging luggage.

[@someguy31415]

“Passengers have to walk that half mile” Bit of an exaggeration there, buddy. ½ mi = 800 m. It’s 250 m from the bus parking lot to the closest doors of the main T1 terminal building. And yes, covered bus stops closer to the terminal building would be better. But a 250 m walk is hardly unusual. T1 itself is MUCH longer than that, so the average walk from check-in to gate may well be longer than that.

[@craigpridemore7566]

I'm 60, with a heart condition. If I have to walk a 1/2 mile, you'd better have paramedics escort me! "PADDLES! CLEAR!" (shocks patient). lol.

[@JohnDoe-lt4kl]

This story is incomplete without mentioning the ghost trains, operating to ensure that air circulates in the tunnels. And, by the way, I used the self-service check-in at BER yesterday. It works now.

[@Kenionatus]

"What is my purpose?" "You circulate air." "Oh no!"

[@bostjan-sj]

I fly from BER frequently and while there are many things that still need improvements, self-checkin was never a problem so far.

[@annoloki]

@@bostjan-sj If only they could have used a self-"build an airport" haha

[@bostjan-sj]

@@annoloki ouch! :) But - does Lego provide something like that? If so, maybe we can crowdsource manpower and build Terminals 3&4 using Lego bricks! Price is going to be the same anyway ;)

[@Blex_040]

Yes! I also expected him to mention that^^ Also, I remember something about 750 TVs for arrivals, departures and the likes that had no way to be turned off separately from the main terminal power because they weren't expecting to be ever turned off during normal airport operation ending in the need to replace them for half a million euro 1-2 years before opening as they already reached the end of their life expectancy xD

[@A3Timo]

What's also import to know about BER Airport is, that it was originally designed to be the Hub of Air Berlin, at the time German's second-largest Airline. By the Time the Airport opened, however, the Airline didn't exist anymore.

[@usakousa]

Yes, the planned hub not being ready in time messed up with their planning too.

[@NicolaW72]

Indeed, exactly!

[@jane4889]

I’m so excited to watch this because I’m German myself and the Berlin Airport is such a joke within Germany and many people say it is proof of a stereotype about German officials and their plans within Germany going wrong and ending up costing more than double they anticipated.

[@bluewizzard8843]

Ah Berlin is Berlin , we Bavarians have nothing to do with these clowns in the capital.

[@jan-lukas]

​@@bluewizzard8843then how is the 2. Stammstrecke in München already far behind schedule and far more costly than expected

[@ARWest-bp4yb]

Years late & over budget is pretty standard here in the US.

[@TechViewOpinions]

We're human and default to complexity before excellence and simplicity.

[@GannDolph]

Sounds like our $4billion renovation of NY LaGuardia airport that came in at over $8bn and now they still plan to build another new Delta terminal. All paid for by taxpayers. .!

[@Kerndon]

I actually visited Berlin in 2012, landing at Tegel. There, a lot of people were just in the process of packing up everything (check-in machines, computers, vending machines, you name it). A few days later (still during my stay), the news hit that the opening of BER would be delayed. You cannot imagine the absolute chaos that befell Tegel, hurrying to unpack and re-install all the equipment that was supposed to go to BER.

[@maxverschuren6858]

I'm visiting Berlin every year from 2009 on and waved goodbye Tegel Airport from the bus several times believing this would REALLY be the last time, as BER would open soon. Only to land at TXL again year after year. 🙈🙈

[@saya-mi]

Yeah, I remember in high school, my german language teacher told us about Brandenburg airport being build. It was year 2010. Since then, I managed to graduate high school, graduate from university as german-czech translator/interpreter and spent two years working and Berlin-Brandenburg still wasn't opened then 😀

[@reinerjung1613]

The "fun" thing is: When you want to build a house in Germany - you know a small one, for one family - you need an architect, and two independent stress analysts who check the soundness of the plans BEFORE you start building anything. Apparently, you can build a whole airport without such checks. Also you do building inspections either by the architect, yourself or others to ensure no wrong parts are used to build the house. Strangely, such measures were not in place for the airport. You cannot get a beach bar container build in Germany without following the rules, but when the state founds a company and gives the "best" airline industry manager (who just ruined the national railways, yes this was his previous gig, he also ruined Air Berlin) the keys to the project. What could possible go wrong.

[@NicolaW72]

The debacle was well underway when Mehdorn joined it - and Air Berlin would have gone bankruptcy early if Mehdorn haven´t made the deal with Etihad. To blame him is much too short-cutted.

[@Theexcellorator64]

I am not gloating in any way because things do go wrong on big construction projects but your comment is absolutely hilarious.

[@VSDeluxe]

That explains a lot. What does he ruin today?

[@reinerjung1613]

@@VSDeluxe he is retired and consults/ruins startup and the Russian railway while living in France.

[@dggeers]

Just like the Titan (or is that too soon?)

[@petrairene]

This was not so much a problem of efficiency, but of incompetent decision makers trying to save money and hiring unqualified companies that promised to do it for cheap.

[@SpyGeorgilis]

They actually DID start by running a competition between a couple of competent companies. Then they changed their minds, dismissed both companies and decided to build everything themselves. Oops.

[@patrickhanft]

Well, competent decision making has everything to do with efficiency.

[@nopers2223322]

Sounds like BMW in the mid 00s

[@sparky6086]

In America, this type of project is popular & is commonly known as a "boondoggle". In the last 30 or 35 years, the Germans seem to have picked up some of the worst habits & features of their former ally, the United States!

[@petrairene]

@@sparky6086 Oh wow, another import from overseas. Yeah, instead of international specialist companies that had long term experience with international airport projects they hired companies with no experience in airports because their offer was cheaper. There was more than in this video, for example they used building materials that are not certified to withstand fire as is by law required for this type of building. The politicians and civil servants who are responsible were never held accountable.

[@conceptSde]

While the BER managers were struggling with all the things going wrong I regularly met one of the TÜV certification engineers, and each and every time he had new horrific stories to tell you would never expect to happen in a developed country. From my POV the main issue was the political decision to keep the project management in the local administration instead of contracting a project management company with plenty of experience in such a large and complex job. The idea was cost saving, but this went terribly wrong.

[@karlharvymarx2650]

Saving money is often expensive.

[@NicolaW72]

@@karlharvymarx2650 Yes.

[@anna_in_aotearoa3166]

I can sympathize to a certain extent - large public works are always challenging because the public wants a top notch result but is very, very rarely willing to up-front support the rates-based funds needed to choose quality contractors and designers! But unfortunately what that deadlock always seems to lead to is going with lowest bidders instead & then frittering away twice the funds in inefficiencies, errors & poor project mgt? 😔 Public/private partnerships seem to be the local weapon of choice to get around these problems, or occasionally just outsourcing completely to private firms? But both of those solutions have tended to lead to massive commercial monopolies, & often problems with exploitation/endangerment of foreign workers & negative local community impacts, so I really don't know what the ideal solution is...? 🤔

[@Robutube1]

That sounds highly believable. Public sector managed projects have a different approach to budgets.

[@PresidentScrooge]

The problem was that a good chunk of the project managers were also politicians. People with no clue about how to do it, but every clue on how to drain as much money as they could, because rules do not apply to them. If you mess up a construction like that as a private company you will be liable and go infront of court and likely have to pay the damages.

[@Datznet]

It was fun: For years you could visit the half-finished new airport, and in spite forbidden run around freely and visit nearly every corner of the new airport, because the security was so dysfunctional and when you were seen there running around as a stranger they thought it's one of the lone plumbers, electricians or consultants visiting the site every some weeks.

[@V100-e5q]

Just put a hardhat on and no one will question your business.

[@tangiblewaves3581]

😂😂😂

[@SteamCrane]

@@V100-e5q Hard hat and clipboard and you're golden. Make up a name badge for an imaginary company.

[@Datznet]

@@V100-e5q That's exactly how it was, except I never had or needed a hardhat on!

[@ironfistgaming8945]

hahahahha I would sure have enjoyed going there with my friends lmaoooo

[@germansnowman]

One of my favourite anecdotes is that some escalators were installed but then had to be extended with a step as they were produced too short, which kind of negates the benefit of an escalator.

[@jb06800fr]

There was also the fact that all the display screens installed in 2012, and that were powered on continuously without actually displaying anything of use, had reached the end of their lifespan before the airport was actually opened to the public, and therefore had to be replaced with newer screens. That cost hundreds of thousands of €€€.

[@maxverschuren6858]

​@@jb06800frWhy were they powered on when the airport was still closed?

[@forstuffjust7735]

​@@maxverschuren6858because there was no off switch. Im serious

[@StuartConsulting]

I am a retired electrical engineer now, but what left me in a fit of giggles was they couldn’t turn the internal lights off for this huge airport. The internal lights mostly used electronic “DALI” ballasts, and these are designed to be fail safe, if they don’t get the correct control signal, they default ON. An honourable feature so occupants will not be left in the dark if control was lost. But an entire airport reliant on one control system, no redundancy with independent zones or such ??? 😂

[@puellanivis]

They were running the information terminals almost the entire time as well, and so many of them had reached End-of-Life hours before they actually opened the airport, meaning they had to replace a bunch of the monitors. 🤦‍♀ I think it’s kind of hilarious, the purpose for which they built these things meant that they had really only ever designed with the consideration that they would be on 24/7… when that wasn’t actually the situation during the whole delay of the opening, there wasn’t any way to go in after the fact and change that fundamental part of the design… so they just had to leave them on 24/7…

[@annoloki]

@@puellanivis The screens for arrivals/departures were left turned on, showing the same thing, which caused the image to "burn-in". This is what the origin of "screen savers" was to avoid happening... as long as you keep the image on the screen changing frequently enough, you avoid getting the burn-in. But, they didn't, they had the same text showing for years, so even when the text changed, you could always see the burn from that old text that wouldn't go away

[@BeaugosseRiche]

You look so young, how are you already retired???

[@charliebooking4917]

One beautiful detail I remember is that when one escalator (moving stairs) was installed, it was found to be short of the upper floor by a few metres. This, as you say, in a country where products are routinely produced with nanometre precision. I feel so badly for the people who gave up their old apartments in north Berlin and moved to the south for their new job at the airport, only to find they now lived miles from nowhere, and without that promised job. At least it would be quiet.

[@Eurobazz]

There were actually four airports in Berlin, one in each of the military sectors. Gatow was in the UK sector, Tegel in the French sector, Tempelhof in the US sector and Schönefeld in the Soviet sector. The two airports which played a part in the Berlin Airlift of 1948/49 were Gatow and Tempelhof. Gatow tried to become a civilian airport but wasn't successful. It eventually closed in 1995.

[@someguy31415]

Tegel was part of the Luftbrücke as well.

[@criscainemusic]

Gatow was always a military airport and it was never supposed to become a civilian airport.

[@NicolaW72]

@@someguy31415 Indeed. Tegel was splashed into the sand within six weeks (!) by the French Military Government because Tempelhof and Gatow had even at this time too short runways to contain the big Aircrafts of that time. It played a major role in the Berlin Airlift 1948/49.

[@EpicThe112]

You are correct by the way the current Berlin Brandenburg Airport it's in the Soviet sector using the old name Schönefeld. Berlin Tempelhof it's called by the US Military as Tempelhof Central Airport

[@dqin0218]

Fun fact the landside part of Terminal 2 was actually originally designed as another parking garage, but was converted last minute into an LCC terminal as a result of Air Berlin's collapse and subsequent change in airline mix at BER. This is why there is no vehicular drop off area at Terminal 2. The airside portion of Terminal 2 was originally supposed to just be the northern concourse of Terminal 1.

[@maximusg88]

That explains a lot... Remember when BER opened and you had to walk after the baggage checks all the way to the non Schengen gates in what is now T2... What a joke...not even any moving walkways

[@JATJAT330]

I flew to this airport last year, I didn't know about its shaky beginnings. But I do remember thinking I was being diverted down some back corridors and not a passenger route to the gate. It is very strangely designed.

[@annando]

Concerning the problems at BER: The mentioned points in the video are just the tip of the spear. Also there has been escalators that were too short, so there was a need adding stairs to them. There had been no overview concerning the numbering of the rooms, so a third of all 4,000 rooms had been assigned wrong numbers. 750 displays had to be renewed long before opening, because they had been running since 2012 and were worn out. Also the computer systems had reached their end of life cycle before opening as well. There had been missing wires for automatic doors, ... the list really is endless and simply hilarious.

[@akse]

Yeah it was funny they hurried all the IT stuff in 2011 and years later had to get new ones since they were end of life and obsolete already.

[@Irondog10]

Loved the sketch! It lightened up the video and added a nice comedic touch. I would love to see more of those sprinkled in into some future videos!

[@MentourNow]

I’ll see what I can do. 💕

[@igel9316]

Before building they looked at 7 possible locations for the airport, taking factors like impact on residents & nature, distance to the city, 24h service, area for expansion etc into account. Then they chose the worst one of the 7.

[@NicolaW72]

Yes, indeed, and originally the favorite place was Spremberg much more in the South of Berlin, where an old Airbase existed. It would have been possible to provide a 24-hours-service in Spremberg, which could have been attractive for big Freighter Companies like DHL. But mainly the Federal Government prevented this from happening because the time to drive to the Government District in the Capital seemed to be much too long and it could have caused a serious competitor to Frankfurt, the other major Airport with a Co-Ownership of the Federal Government. In Germany most Airports are owned by State Governments, Local Authorities or Private Companies, not by the Federal Government - Frankfurt and Berlin-Brandenburg are exceptions. So the new Airport of the new German Capital was located in Schönefeld and Leipzig became the new Major Hub for DHL.

[@NicolaW72]

Sperenberg, not Spremberg.😃

[@CH-lc3yf]

The problems at BER had nothing to do with the location. Schönefeld was just fine. But the complete incompetence at the leadership level...

[@PresidentScrooge]

@@CH-lc3yf Not true. Schönefeld is build on Swamp ground and the landing strips were almost breaking several times due to heavy rain and the swampy soil. Yes, the main factor is still nepotism and corruption (and as a result incompetence). But the location is still anything but good.

[@commerce-usa]

The failure to consider what can go wrong is also a huge issue with modern computing too. Great video Petter!

[@amazer747]

and world governments want to go to a digital currency. What could possibly go wrong go wrong go wrong....

[@Mike-oz4cv]

The problem is: How do you even start to plan for unknown unknowns? Sure, you could just start to randomly double or triple your estimated time and cost, but is that really a good approach?

[@WellISaidIt]

it's not a modern phenomena, it's been going on since computing was invented. my degree thesis was on software failures and that was in 1997 which included software failures in the uk from the 70 and 80's. the longer a project goes on the bigger the chance of its failure. The saying is "a customer does not know what they don't want until they see it is action". Most projects are a disaster due to humans chasing their mind about the specifications.

[@annando]

Concerning "German efficiency" I also recommend having a look at "Stuttgart 21" and the "Elbphilharmonie". The Elbphilharmonie is a concert hall in Hamburg and originally was planned to cost 77 Million Euros - but ended costing 866 millions ... "Stuttgart 21" is a project to complete rebuild the Stuttgart train station. The costs exploded as well and there are - of course - huge time delays.

[@sleepysera]

BER has NOTHING on Stuttgart 21 x) It started planning in 1994 and still isn't completed, with the current expected completion date being late 2025/early 2026. Well, the only relevant part of it (the high speed train tunnel towards Ulm allowing people to travel between the two cities in as little as 40 minutes) was completed last year, so they can take however long they want to finish the disaster that is the rest of the station 😌

[@BuenoSuertes]

I flew in via Tegel in 2019 and it was actually pretty pleasant, if you have the right expectations in mind. The baked goods were better than Heathrow and the shop person helping me with my SIM card was really pleasant - as good service as I have ever had anywhere. Yes, it's very small but that gives it a rare charm. And while there was no direct train, getting to my hotel downtown via bus and train was really easy.

[@Ichioku]

Yes, and each arrival gate had its own carousel and inmigration control, taxis were parked just outside, it was uber convenient.

[@Sellerieknolle76]

One thing about the location decision that was missed in the video: The expert commission highly favoured Sperenberg as the location for the new airport - a former Soviet Air Force base, South of Berlin, because there is a lot of space to expand, very few neighbours, and a single set of train tracks leading there which could have been upgraded. They considered the extension of Schönefeld being the worst choice. Another good option would have been Neuhardenberg (fka Marxwalde), the former base of the GDR government airplanes. But the politicians decided otherwise.

[@shadeitplease7383]

I remember commenting about this airport after I listened to the Well There’s Your Problem episode about that. They talked about the “brandenberg curve” where planes have to take this absurd path after takeoff to avoid going over residential areas.

[@chrisschack9716]

Have a look at arrivals to 13L/R and departures from 31L/R at JFK sometime ... though that's more to do with having so many airports so near.

[@heikepeike6240]

I lived in Berlin from 1991 to 2016, my favourite story around BER is that for nine years empty trains had to be driven to and from the airport to ventilate those tunnels. I imagine it like a Jim Jarmusch film.

[@lroke2947]

Oh, I like this story, but only when told together with the story how the arrivals/departures displays became obsolete and needed to be upgraded before ever being seen by a passenger. :)

[@conorlanders8401]

Not obsolete, worn out because they had been on constantly since being installed

[@lroke2947]

@@conorlanders8401 Yeah, sorry. Poor choice of words on my part. I guess we've seen the same documentary. :)

[@nuuukethewhales]

Petter, I just want to compliment the fluidity of your English growing over the years. I switched from living in English over to French around 2000 as I became an adult, and getting used to the cadence and subtleties of another language is tricky and requires so much practice and patience. Love your channels and content!

[@JanBruunAndersen]

Petter is from Sweden where I guess the elementary school system is similar to the Danish schools. It has been many years since I was in primary school, but back then we were taught English from 5th grade, German from 7th, and from 9th-10th grade we had the option of learning Latin, French, Spanish, or Russia to name a few. I had 1 year of Latin in 9th grade as preparation for learning French in gymnasium. I assume Petter have had a similar experience with being taught English as a youngster. And Denmark and Sweden and many other small countries still do not dub movies into the local language, so we got to hear plenty of of spoken English on TV and in movie theaters.

[@nuuukethewhales]

@@JanBruunAndersen I learned French in a similar way here in Canada, from a young age in primary school as a second language. However, maybe this was the case for you as well, the way the second language was taught did not help much in real-world situations. I built my proficiency from French music, cinema, and making friends who helped me along without laughing (too much) at my French. We are privileged to have been taught different languages, it may have given us the opportunity to explore this more easily as we grow older.

[@220773]

Aye, man, it's growing and growing, as you know I'm an English teacher and... trust me, yer doin' very guid (btw, I'm now using Scots 😀 )

[@JanBruunAndersen]

@@nuuukethewhales - I transitioned from one school to another in 5th grade. First school was "traditional" using a mix of Danish and English in the language class. Imagine my surprise and confusion at the new school when the teacher walked in the door and began speaking English from the first moment! Every part of class was conducted in English. Later I developed a strong interest in science fiction, and since all the good books was in English and few were translated into English, I learned a lot that way.

[@wobblybobengland]

His English is verbesserungsbedürftig.

[@todortodorov940]

The project is managed in so un-german way as it gets; it just blows my mind. My favorite is that the information monitors inside the terminal were tested and turned on in 2012. They have a life-span of about 7 years. You do the math; they had to be replaced even before the airport opened.

[@srfiorini]

The pedagogic value of Brandenburg Airport history is probably greater than it's value as an airport at this point.

[@linaskvedaras]

Pedagogic? You mean academic or are we specifically sticking with children with this one 😂

[@andy_nvrmnd]

But everybody knows what corruption is, and when "management faults" just a tool of justification, make more SMOKE and mirrors and bury the money, well done

[@andrasbiro3007]

@@linaskvedaras Well, anyone above 12 shouldn't need this lesson. At least I think a 12 year old will understand that smoke goes up, rain is wet, and what roofs are for.

[@marcelfermer5369]

Good case studies are invaluable.

[@garrettkajmowicz]

@@marcelfermer5369 They're even better when someone else is paying for them.

[@teg24601]

Love the overview. Other issues - The original designer didn't want to have shops, as he thought they were a distraction to passengers and made things look bad. They started building with his original designs, and it wasn't until the operator that was hired for the airport started asking why there were so few shop spaces (which are basically required for passenger comfort and to balance the books), that they were retrofitted into the design. Also, there is no separation, no airlocks and no air curtains between the train station and the terminals, which means when it is cold outside, a cold wind whips into the terminal when trains come in, and there is a larger percentage than needed of brake dust in the air. Oh, and due to the noise issues and closeness of some villages, there are some ludicrous approach and departure paths that never should have been agreed to.

[@simonfrost7094]

I read the same thing about the shops in a BBC News article. I'm surprised Petter didn't mention it.

[@sleepysera]

@@simonfrost7094 Because there is so much wrong with it that he could make a 5 hour video and still not be done with listing all the insanity that went on in that project 😅

[@firefly4f4]

"Designed to pump the smoke down" Forget engineering; did that person not pass any grade school science classes? Even taking engineering into account, the design used pumps to get the smoke down. Pumps that would run on electricity; usually one of the first things cut during a fire. Pumps that themselves inevitably will generate heat. Did the design go through any approval process at all?

[@skayt35]

Yes, the politicians and the (non-engineer) architect approved it. Or rather, they pushed for it and then approved their own decision.

[@TheMooseDrummer]

I'm coach driver from Poland. In my previous company, we were often doing, passenger shuttle from Poznań (where I live) to BER airport. The case is, as far as I know, BER is closed between 2400hrs and 0600hrs, probably due to noise level restrictions, and if the aircraft misses the last slot, because of delay en route, the it is diverted to reserve airport , mostly Poznań, and then several coaches have to be called on short notice , to pick up those passengers, and takę them back, almost 4 hours drive, to Berlin 😂

[@Tvuvtctoj46fck]

That's not unusual. I'm a coach driver too and we frequently have last-minute rides from/to Schiphol, Rotterdam, Eindhoven and Düsseldorf. Diversions happen a lot, and always are a pain in the rear.

[@maxverschuren6858]

​@buzjevur Yeah Eindhoven also closes at midnight, but we're talking about Berlins only airport here, not some small local one. We should compare it with Schiphol.

[@thetowndrunk988]

Love it, Petter. You’re the ONLY person that could tell this story, and actually make it interesting and well explained.

[@susiejones3634]

Absolutely Fantastic 💯 ❤

[@isthatrubble]

the "well there's your problem" podcast episode on this airport is also very good!

[@weppwebb2885]

Oh, for this story I think the comedy writes itself :D

[@shadeitplease7383]

@@isthatrubble came to comment this lol

[@diet4healing-functionalmed856]

I'm from Berlin, but live in Australia for the last 15 yrs. I watched the whole embarrassing disaster from the beginning. Mentor, you forgot to mention that there was also a problem with the concrete mixture for the runway. From menory they had to redo the runway because of that. Also Tegel airport was unable to cope with the increasing demand of airtravel (prior to COVID) so Tegel had to expand the terminals. But of course any expansion would only be temporarily, so it was made as cheap as possible. For quite some time I arrived at and departed from terminals that resembled more cardboard boxes than anything else... it was just embarrassing and ultra inconvinient, as there was no service and no amenities or toilets in those cardboard terminals. It's sooo annoying to visit my friends and family without being able to get a direct flight into Berlin (except from Doha) It's the capital for god sake!!! But as of May 2023 no direct flights to Singapore or any other Asian city operated by decent airlines. Only budget airlines offer direct flights... (well, I give those a miss) It's an ongoing annoying drama... and such an embarrassment for Berlin. 😐😐

[@unitrader403]

one point you should have pointed out early in the Video: with the location selection early in the process there were studies for the best location for the Airport (at least two of them), and 10 possible locations were compared in each. Schönefeld was last in both of them, and Berlin-Sperenberg was determined to be the best possible location. But the Politicians back then decided they knew better.

[@susiejones3634]

Oh, those pesky politicians. 😢

[@ovekarlsson777]

​@@susiejones3634 Trying to vote for the least disastrous ones every time there's an election. It doesn't seem to help!😅

[@bothieGMX]

@@ovekarlsson777 Ever tried voting for AfD?

[@criscainemusic]

Sperenberg would have been a disaster on its own. 50km away from the city center. Stupid idea.

[@unitrader403]

Schönefeld is already at 25km, and you could say it is already too close because its presence affects many people in a negative way because the planes have to fly over several villages on arrival / departure. With Sperenberg as Location this could have been avoided completely. Also no need to buy out entire Villages to make room, which was the cause of a huge part of these initial delays.

[@koini11]

I remember the debacle about the fact they kept this secret to the last minute well. I'd just begun working in aviation data and we had the whole airport. Including all instrument procedures coded and ready to go until they pulled the plug at the last minute. It's not the last time cock ups like this have happened by any means (we have to roll back because of work overruns not factored into by airspace designers all the time) but as I was new at the time, added to the fact it was Germany of all countries, makes it memorable.

[@designsbyphilip510]

Noise from airports have gotten so much better than they used to be. I grew up in Tulsa, Ok. USA, less than 3/4 miles from the end of a large class C airport that also serviced a McDonald Douglas maintenence facility, a National Guard base, and a American Airlines maintenence facility. In the late 70s it was common for people at my house to pause a conversation in mid sentence to allow a plane to past so the other person to hear what you were saying. Last time I went back to visit I noticed people no longer did that as the noise wasnt near as loud as it used to be. I have also been told they no longer test monster engines in the middle of the night. Massive roars used to reverberate the house at about 11pm to 1am (imagine space shuttle engines being cranked up.) The neighborhood is so much more quiet than it used to be.

[@LeifNelandDk]

There's a suburb to Paris that was abandoned 30 years or so ago due to the noise from the airport with planes taking off overhead, that's become habitable again.

[@LeifNelandDk]

@@redfava Probably windows got better too ;-)

[@grizzlygrizzle]

Years ago I lived in Boston about 30 feet from an subway track where it came aboveground, out of a tunnel and into a tight curve to line up with a bridge across the river. The wheels screeched mercilessly through the curve, about every 20 minutes from 5am to 1am. So we, too, learned to pause in our conversations, and became quite accustomed to it. We also learned to sleep through it.

[@BonaTaylor]

OMG, that one stung 😂😂😂. Being a German engineer myself, I was going large distances on making jokes for years on it and teaching young colleagues on how NOT to plan and construct anything, but seeing it to be the bottom of a joke for the rest of the world is such a bummer since I now need to explain that to everyone from abroad why the Germans failed so bad on this project. 😂😂😂😂 The coverage is pretty neat again, Petter. I am surprised on how much detail knowledge you could acquire on the subject. 👍

[@kentslocum]

I don't blame ordinary Germans for the Berlin airport debacle, any more than I blame ordinary Americans for our disaster in Afghanistan. The only thing that ordinary people can do is hold their Leadership to account.

[@V100-e5q]

You should explain it like this: We put a lot of effort on teaching technicians. So we took the extra step to build a messed up airport as a training facility so we can train to find mistakes and faulty installations and how to do it right instead.

[@BonaTaylor]

@@V100-e5q 🤣🤣🤣

[@Delibro]

@@kentslocum Well said. And this is so important.

[@keithmartin1328]

What is happening in Germany at the moment? An airport nearly 10 years late, delays and cancellations with the trains, crumbling Autobahns. Are you trying to copy Britain?😊

[@dannyblau3850]

The fire spotter thing. I literally did that as a temp job in America for like 4 months haha. Basically a subway train system in the area was doing some renovation construction and for about 3-4 stations the specific things they need to work on required them to shut off their existing fire prevention systems. So obviously it was an e visiting operations that had those systems in place and a very specific reason to shut them down and do this as an option. But was funny to hear that come up in this on the opposite sketch reasoning haha

[@johnslaughter5475]

My father was stationed at Templehof during the Berlin Airlift. In fact, he appears briefly, twice, in the movie "The Big Lift," which was actually filmed there during the airlift.

[@BerndFelsche]

My father, having freshly escaped the Soviet sector, was employed to help construct new runways at Celle-Wietzenbruch which would have doubled the lift's capacity.

[@maryeckel9682]

Thank you to both dads ❤❤

[@multirider8997]

My father who escaped east Germany at the end of the 1950's took his first flight ever from Tempelhof to somewhere in west germany as a refugee. Did u know that Tempelhof airport had a ballroom... this was later used by the americans as a basketball court post war.

[@johnslaughter5475]

@@multirider8997 No, I did not know that. Thank you. 😊👍

[@radrabbit011]

I'm not a pilot, but I'm an enthusiast. Just wanted to say I love your videos. Really wish I would've taken a different career path in life.

[@cackens]

Tegel was an incredibly great Airport. From home to the seat in the plane I could sometimes make it within 30min, it only lacked a subway connection. Actually even the berliners (including me at the time) voted to keep it open since it was just so practical with very short ways and not this overboarding focus on shopping.

[@diegorhoenisch62]

But Tegel is surrounded by far too many people which made it a potential disaster. Tempelhof was closed for the same reason.

[@patrickhanft]

Unfortunately the referendum was not in good faith, as it was obvious there was no legal way for the Berlin state to expand the operating license of Tegel beyond the opening of BER.

[@xaverlustig3581]

@@diegorhoenisch62 Both airports operated for decades without complaints. There are many airports in the middle of cities in the world.

[@1Kaisermerlin]

​@@xaverlustig3581 Thats a straight up lie, the local population complained all the time.

[@xaverlustig3581]

@@1Kaisermerlin I've lived around those two airports for most of my life, never heard complaints by anyone. The Tempelhof referendum had the highest pro votes in the vicinity of the airport. I'm only aware of complaints by West Germans who had recently moved in, greens and people like that, who don't count for obvious reasons.

[@blu.berrii]

SO excited to watch this as someone who uses the Berlin airport ALL the time! It's a big running joke but honestly, its okay now after settling. The Berlin Runway is a huge success for me (although you dont normally need to wait more than 15 mins at security anyways), and it being free where at other airports there is a charge for fast-lane security is a HUGE plus! Self service desks work and all the stores u need are open if you're not flying before 8 am or after 8pm. We are low on staff but at this point, what airport isn't?? I can usually get to the airport 1.5 hours before my flight, even if its international, sit down to have a Starbucks, then go through security, and I'm always at the gate about 10-30 minutes early. And inside the airport the directions are actually really efficient and easy to understand + it has that gorgeous modern wooden look :D Something I really miss when at super crowded airports such as Heathrow. I love that even when there are flights every 5 mins, Berlin never gets crowded, ever. They're really good at moving people around so that you don't notice it being full.

[@Gulitize]

My father has his own BER story, he owns a company which works with many hotels, and one day he got a call from a hotel chain asking if he can perform his service at a different hotel than planned, the problem? The brand new hotel was finished, the airport wasn't :D.

[@jpkosoltrakul]

This reminds me of Suvarnabhumi Airport in Thailand. It took more than 40 years from initial plan to finish-ish. Tons of problem from corruptions. Even today, there're still controversial problems consistently popping up all the time.

[@grahambaker6664]

Still the new Sydney airport is yet to be finished 50 years after the need was identified and QANTAS has had to delay Perth - Paris and Perth - Frankfurt flights due to lack of capacity at Perth Airport. It is good to see you are expanding out from flying issues into the support areas such as airports.

[@markloeffler677]

Would like to swap Frankfurt for Berlin the Capital of Germany although the Zoll officers in Berlin are like East German Stasi!

[@czossosnkowy]

I've been working there this August and this airport is a mess. I don't remember a single day without inoperative elevator(s). Check-in boxes are so close to each other that passengers from one line mix with passengers from the other line. A lot of construction going on every day - falling tiles, water pipes problems. Dead ends you don't expect - you keep walking 5 minutes one corridor, and the only exit there is is the exit to the gate, so good luck escaping fire. One way exits howling nonstop, making nobody react to any alarms anymore. I'm not even working for any safety department, but none of other airports made me so nervous.

[@ToMeQ696]

I actually enjoyed the delay because I loved TXL. I can't name any other airport this size, where from a gate to the exit was less than 50 meters.

[@shchorss]

Kansas City's old wagon wheel terminals were designed this way as well

[@multirider8997]

The big benefit of TXL was that one could step out of the taxi onto the airplane... well sort of😂... the big drawback was there was no rail connection to the airport. And of course for the airport it was costlier to have security at every gate instead of forcing "customers" to stand in mile long centralised security queues 😡😤😡😤 also it was difficult to force "enforced" shopping. Yes Tegel was a good airport for passengers... but airports today dont give a toss about passengers ... who are expected to shop buy and walk miles.

[@XalphYT]

Tegel had all the charm of a dark, cramped, concrete bus terminal.

[@maxverschuren6858]

​@@XalphYT😂 Yeah well I liked the design. 😊

[@asdf7711]

Farranfore in Ireland. Literally on the side of the road. Cute Kerry folk!

[@pierremainstone-mitchell8290]

Quite Priceless indeed! Reminds me of the "Yes Minister" episode about the hospital with no patients!

[@TheFreaker86]

The title in the thumbnail alone is worth a thumbs up 🤣👍🏻 here in Germany this was a tragicomedy of epic proportions competing only with the construction of Hamburgs Opera house Elbphilharmonie. I’ll watch it later, already looking forward to it

[@carstenlechte]

At least Elbphilharmonie and BER got built and they function. 😀 Stuttgart's underground central train station still has to prove its fitness for purpose.

[@TheFreaker86]

@@carstenlechte I thought about Stuttgart 21 too, but I haven’t heard anything about it in a long while

[@marco21274]

One interesting point is that the last manager was actually a civil servant which finally cleaned up the mess. The hired multiple manager before but the only thing they have done was to declare new opening dates. I think it shows very well our new management culture where managers don't want to take hard decision because they can be blamed for it. So if after the failed opening it took years to clean it up. One of the biggest problem was that before the first opening they really rushed and most was undocumented. It was a mess.

[@herrunsinn774]

19:20 I've had exactly the same experience as Petter during the few unfortunate times I have been forced to use the horrible new Berlin airport. I'm glad he mentioned there is no covered walkway between the two terminals. It's particularly brutal during the winter. Additionally (albeit as many new airports are designed), passengers moving through the terminals are forced to snake their way through endless shopping areas (in attempt to encourage buying overpriced goods). When you simply want to get to your gate, it's so irritating to be forced to negotiate these labyrinths. Then there are the waiting areas... At first glance they seem to be well equipped with phone charging sockets everywhere.... but good luck finding one that is actually connected. Another gripe is trying to find the bus pickup area, with absolutely no signs pointing the way and (like the distance between the terminals) it's a several hundred-meter walk, with no shelter from the elements along the way. One final point in general; Anyone who has ever had the pleasure of dealing with Germans at length knows that the only things Germans are efficient at is in creating needless complexity and bureaucracy. It's therefore "kein Wunder" that the new Berlin airport was/is such a dumpster fire. 😱

[@alipezeshkpour8702]

The charging outlet is the most comical disaster there, all of the charging stations are stands with limited sockets and no sitting place so you have to leave your phone or stand there for an hour, there are also no power outlets beside the sits, so basically forget about charging anything there 😂

[@zafinet1169]

​@@alipezeshkpour8702 i went to the airport a few days ago in terminal T2 and all the chargibg sockets in thr lounge area were broken and i had to survive on 12% battery on a ryanair flight, aswell as dealing with my powerbank dying

[@markloeffler677]

Lol

[@jmarttal]

Years ago when I was visiting Berlin, there was an air show at Brandenburg, and I saw the An-225 take off and circle around the airport... while I was having an outing at Tempelhof, some 12 kilometers away! That plane was a beast, RIP.

[@Andreas-du7eg]

Thank you for more details about BER. As a Geman, I am used to planning disasters. There are many more of these tax money wasting projects out there. As a few examples, I can name: Elbphiharmonie in Hamburg, Weser-Jade-Port in Wilhelmshaven, Stuttgart 21, Berlin City Palace, amusement park at the Nürburgring, Leipzig City Tunnel. Politicians are dishonest. Opening dates are sometimes promised against better knowledge. Spending someone else's money is easy. In some cases, politicians may not choose the contractors based on professional criteria. In many cases, there are simply incompetent people in the crucial positions. In all cases, the need for financing is borne by the taxpayer and afterwards the necessary positions in the authorities are cut because there is a lack of money.

[@hypergolic8468]

Can I say though, as a British person who's spent quite a bit of time in Germany, and loves the people and it as a country (I used to be seen occasionally on your Autobahns in various big green things 😁😁 ). Some of these projects have not run as they should, but in 40, 60 years they will be appreciated. Stuttgart 21, will in fifty years time be the best thing ever done, and the costs will be very much seen as very small compared to the benefits the project brings. Germany has some issues with it's political classes (we certainly do in the UK), but Germany, is in, and will be a better place in the future.

[@Andreas-du7eg]

@@hypergolic8468 Well, the assumption that in 50-60 years many things will be considered good does not contradict the opinion that decisions are made very suboptimal these days. Just because a result is good, you can still criticize the way there. For me, Stuttgart21 will always be associated with the image of the man whose eye was shot out by a water cannon Whenever I hear "Elbphilharmonie", I think of the fact that kindergartens can't take in all the children because there aren't enough staff who either haven't been trained or are underpaid. The costs rose from €77 million to €850 million. So €773 million in additional expenditure - how many kindergartens could have been built from it...

[@FlanaFugue]

The Leipzig City Tunnel was a resounding success despite the years of complaining. It opened more or less on time and has been heavily used since.

[@adriandaw3451]

After the Kings Cross fire in 1987 all sub surface stations were manned with staff inspecting every room at 30 minute intervals. This was done for 3 months, until fire detection systems could be installed. The overtime costs were phenomenal.

[@der.Schtefan]

Engineer living in Berlin here. Let me add some background info, and info about your Terminal 2 experience and why it is like this: 1) The core reasons for the debacle all run to this: 1a) As was later publicly admitted by himself, Berlin's former mayor Klaus Wowereit (may he rest in peace), being the chairman of the project, insisted personally on the roof-top exhaust system for "vanity" reasons. The system was highly discouraged, many times recommendations to drop it were issued, and the real-world example installations were only working on a very small scale and were untested, but he kept pushing for it. He admitted his personal guilt and the lack of his oversight on the project publicly when stepping down. 1b) His party (SPD) insisted on managing the project with a governmental body instead of hiring a private general contractor. As the project was quite expensive, they wanted to give as many jobs to small companies in the area as possible, thus "spending the money of the people locally on the small businesses". This sounds quite nice at first, but what it created was thousands of uncoordinated mini-projects, with no general contractor having oversight or having to be liable in case of problems. Without oversight, contractors just placed cables "wherever", mixing high voltage, high EM-emission, and critical signalling cabling in the same pipes. Imagine a 737 being built with people just randomly placing wiring around. Because cables would connect random door closing systems, even in a simulated play-through the 800-person-smoke-spotter solution failed, since the wrong doors would have closed in case of a person emitting an alarm. 1c) The issue went so far as that the wrong fire protection standards were applied for installations such as nuts, bolts, wiring, etc. The reason: The airport is technically in the federal state of BRANDENBURG, but the planning office applied the BERLIN code for fire proofing, which did not line up in many details. The airport would have needed a complete strip down and rebuild. A proposed solution was to change the building code in Brandenburg by law to make the airport compliant. 2) Regarding Terminal 2: 2a) Terminal 2 was built as cheap, as fast, as stupidly as possible, and not according to original ideas, done as an emergency measure. In the arrival hall, most terminals are disconnected, there are almost no elevators, no escalators, bare concrete walls and unfinished sections, and as you said: you have to walk in the rain to the taxi stands. The reason: 2b) During the airport build delay, air travel to Berlin had exploded thanks to the city going through boom years, and the low airport costs of the old TXL and SXF airports. easyJet, Ryanair, etc. all had made the airport their hub, taking over the slots of AirBerlin after they went bankrupt. In late 2019, with a project manager we all had faith in, when we actually knew that the October 2020 date will be finally met, projections showed that Terminal 1 and 5 (old SXF) will be far to small already, and with TXL closing, the airport would be exceeding 15% over capacity the day it would open. It became clear that while T1 would be finally done "in time" as promised, neither T2, nor the government or military terminal would. Scrambling to fix this issue, the project manager issued the order to quickly build the mess that is Terminal 2. When the pandemic hit, it was a blessing in disguise, since T2 was not open in October 2020. Somebody designed the cheapest, most stupid terminal, they built it. 2c) The irony is that the airport after the pandemic is FAR FAR BELOW capacity, and Terminal 5 (old SXF) closed down almost a year ago. Except for specific low cost carriers, Terminal 2 is rarely used, even easyJet flies from T1. It is jarring to land there (happened last time when our plane got redirected there for a police inspection) They thus built T2 haphazardly without there being any need for it to even exist at the moment. Many times ideas to decrease the running costs included closing T2 temporarily. 2d) The reason the airport is used less and less is the high airport fees. Being a government owned, publicly funded project, it cannot charge less, since it is forbidden to incur higher deficits. It thus has to charge quite a hefty fee to finance the cost overruns, and carriers like easyJet and Ryanair have axed 60% of their connections. Lufthansa et co. have disconnected it from most international trips, requiring a change in FRA or MUC. Most vacation destinations that I was able to directly reach in 2019 with EJ or RA in Spain would now take me 5+ hours incl. stopovers. With less and less airlines flying, the remaining ones face higher and higher fees to satisfy the no-new-debts legal criteria. 3) The irony of the airport is that when it was initially planned, they wanted to save as much money as possible, given the fact Berlin was in an extreme deficit and had to foot the cost of unification and clearing up the aftermath of the Berlin wall ("Berlin is poor but sexy"). Since then, Berlin has changed a lot, and since 10 years the city is running a budget surplus of 1.5-2.1 BILLION euro a year (except for corona years) thanks to Brexit, the startups, and high tech industries flowing into the city. The initial cost of the airport would have been able to be paid with spare cash. There are so many more stupid things, but as a Berlinner I just can't anymore.

[@obelic71]

Luckily you can reach Berlin good by train. When you visit the city multiple times you grow a soft spot for it. Very soon when the new Talgo trains come in service (NS, NMBS and DB) Taking a pint at Berlins Beergardens will even be more possible

[@kevinbarry71]

Thank you for that well reasoned explanation.

[@Blex_040]

Regarding 1c), as someone who has worked in an IT company very near to the government of multiple German states, this sounds way too familiar... German federalism is really a waste of so much time and money, it's just mind boggling... it usually makes no sense whatsoever that there are 16 different sets of laws, even though we all speak the same language (okay, maybe except Bavaria), all need to follow the same set of basic laws and can move freely between states

[@Eternal_Tech]

@@Blex_040 If you think 16 states in Germany is bad, the 50 states of the United States of America can be even worse. Not to mention all of the counties, cities, towns, boroughs, villages, special commissions, etc. within the country, each with its own lawmaking powers.

[@alnicospeaker]

erm..Wowereit is not dead?!

[@supermilo]

This is hilarious. I moved to Berlin for a six month contract in 2011and I had a ticket that said BER as my arrival destination. I ended up staying longer, getting married, and finally flying out of BER for the first time, on a flight with my 5 year old daughter. You're right BER is a regional airport only, if you want intercontinental travel, you have to go to Frankfurt, Munich, Schiphol, Paris....

[@mgunther68]

I had a confirmed ticket From Dublin to BER for August 2012. The flight then went to Schönefeld. I had written a longer comment but sadly it keeps disappearing. Trying to edit now and add the other bit: Great video once again and this time with a personal connection. Having been born in East Germany, my first ever flight was from Berlin Schönefeld to Burgas in Bulgaria with my uncle in the late 70's. I was around 10 or 11 and I think it was an Interflug TU-134 plane. Much later I moved to Ireland and used Schönefeld on a regular basis to visit family and friends back home - and I'm happy to see my hometown mentioned on one of the roadsigns that you featured. Suffice to say I followed the whole saga with much interest and amusement from afar and actually had bought tickets for a flight to the new BER - which was then diverted to the old Schönefeld once it became clear to everyone that the grand opening was not going to happen.

[@MentourNow]

The comments will only disappear if you put links in them.

[@mgunther68]

@@MentourNow There were no actual links but I had found the old ticket confirmations and YT seemed to have automatically converted the departure and arrival times times to links.. maybe that's what happened. Flight EI0330 - Fri 10 Aug 2012 Departs: Dublin-Terminal 2 (DUB) 07 20 Arrives: Berlin (BER) 10 35 Status: A/Economy Class CONFIRMED 🤪

[@MatthijsvanDuin]

@@mgunther68 KZbin mistakenly classifiying something as a link (I've had it happen with version numbers) and then quietly spamfiltering the comment because it contains a link is just infuriating. Like, if links are not allowed just don't linkify any text, or give me an error message and a chance to fix my comment.

[@johnhaller5851]

​@@MatthijsvanDuinThe problem with links is that whenever a channel gets popular, it attracts link-spam. The channel owner or comment administrator can allow a comment with a link to be visible, but they don't have time for that.

[@MatthijsvanDuin]

@@johnhaller5851 I know all this, it doesn't excuse poor link detection nor the solution they implemented.

[@comealongbeth]

Flew into T2 at BER earlier this month and found it very odd that to get to the train station you have to walk out of the terminal and all the way across to the other side of T1

[@blockbertus]

As a german, I must say your pronounciation of all the names (especially Schönefeld) is pretty spot on. I'm very surprised. :)

[@gailpeterson3747]

I was also impressed by Petter's pronunciation of the German umlaut. I lived in Bavaria for 6 years and still could not master that trick of the tongue...lol!!

[@kala_asi]

@@gailpeterson3747 he's Swedish, Swedish also has this vowel

[@snax_4820]

In case you did not notice, Petter is from Sweden and not from Bombay.

[@Scriptease1]

I thought from St. Pettersburg :O

[@MarsJenkar]

@@Scriptease1 Rimshot, please.

[@DrewJmsn]

Living in the states amd having good friends in Berlin, it's always amazed me how a city with such strong international stature has so few direct transcontinental flights. Every time I've visited, layovers at LHR, CDG, AMS, or FRA. I had high hopes the new airport would change that. ☹️

[@felixstieger9039]

The problem is that the airline which would have made Berlin it’s Hub, AirBerlin, doesn’t exist anymore. And Lufthansa, Germanys other full service carrier already has two big hubs in Germany. Frankfurt and Munich. In addition to Vienna, Zurich and Brussels. They do not need another hub.

[@DrewJmsn]

@@felixstieger9039 yes there's that, but I was thinking more non-European carriers would start picking it up. One of my friends in Berlin is from Vietnam and she has to take a train to Frankfurt to catch a flight home. Last time I checked, maybe 6 months ago, there was exactly one nonstop between North America and Berlin, on UAL out of EWR for $$$$. I have friends in Lyon, France too, and the few times I've booked that trip, I had multiple options to get there in one stop from my non-hub midwest USA town. So that's what surprises me, that more North American an other non-European carriers haven't added Berlin routes.

[@felixstieger9039]

@@DrewJmsn The big problem Berlin as a location is that there is not enough demand. While Berlin is a big city, there is nearly nothing in the vicinity. Also Berlin as a city of startups has not as big a demand for business travel. As this is where airlines make the majority of there money it is difficult. What Berlin has is a relatively big tourist demand. But tourists tend to travel in economy class and are more price conscious than business travelers. And because tourists are price conscious, they tend not to pay a premium for direct flights. They tend to book cheaper layover options. And as Berlin is connected to all of europes major hubs,(and some in North America and the Middle East) there is not much financial opportunity to start more long haul flights there. I do expect some more North American and Asian carriers to serve it from their hubs. But nothing in comparison to other European capitals.

[@h.szymanski]

I think there are some new direct connections offered by Norse Atlantic (JFK and LAX, among others)

[@felixstieger9039]

@@h.szymanski Norse had to cancel LAX after just 8 weeks. The future for the routes to JFK and Fort Lauderdale are also highly doubtful. Long Haul low cost from Europe has always been financially dubious to say the least. Those Norse Atlantic routes have a hard time since there are no connecting passengers at either end. And just Berlin may not be enough to reliably fill those flights. Meanwhile United seems to have an easier time with their flights to EWR. Precisely because it is their Hub. They can feeder those flights from many different destinations.

[@lgrantnelson2863]

Wouldn't be surprised if every region in the world has a story like that. Reminds me of the Denver airport. It had an automatic luggage sorter that didn't work.. From a distance it looks like a circus tent. It has unmanned terminal terminal trains, that when the doors are blocked say do not block the doors it is a Federal crime. It might have changed. I haven't been there for years. Excellent video.

[@zonacrocone4804]

The funny thing is that the baggage handling system at DEN had been planned by a German company.

[@craig7350]

In the aerospace industry, worrying about what might go wrong is not a preoccupation, its basically all they do. I saw one manager of the Mars rover say his whole team, all they do is discuss what might go wrong. He said he hadn't had a full nights sleep in 10 years.

[@mateusmorgado]

That airport is horribly cold in winter. There's no separation between the train station and the airport so there is a lot of wind coming in from there to the building

[@alexanderantoninsommerkamp4714]

As a German it makes me proud that we have provided the world with this piece of comedy. Apparently we have humor after all

[@srowley85]

I’ve only flown in and out of Tegel. In spite of its age, it was very efficient for travel. I remember getting through customs and passport control in less than a half hour after arrival and the check in desk for the return flight was very close to the gate. From what you say, BER is missing this efficiency. I hope that can change.

[@zoli11]

I loved Tegel so much. Because security was *not* centralized but only for a few gates together, the distance between the outer door and your plane was maybe 50 meters. You could get door to door In 10 - 15 minutes. And the police there doing the checks always had great humour.

[@bencheah6280]

I was visiting Berlin late May and early June 2012. In the span of a month or so leading up to the trip (coming from and returning to New York) my flights were changed and cancelled several times by the airline. What was changing was the airport, and what became apparent was that the German Aviation authorities were not communicating or rescheduling landing and departure airport slots with the airlines. It was a mess, and for weeks I didn't know if I actually had flights (could travel). Germany is an incredible country, but this was crazy!

[@GuilhermeCabral]

I’d love to see a video like this about the Lisbon airport and Portugal’s flagship carrier TAP air Portugal, even if all the mess that has been going on with the airline is more of a political subject than aviation related. Thanks for this video anyway, super interesting!

[@Sashazur]

We flew out of the airport last September. I know few will shed tears for us, but even though we were first class we spent two hours on 3 different lines, when the airport didn’t look particularly crowded. The only odd design element I remember was the food court past security being kind of off to one side and up some stairs, instead of being central and more visible and easily reachable.

[@davidbeckenbaugh9598]

In Seattle, ALL the services are inside the secure area. You cannot even get a cup of coffee without going through security. Most of the toilets are in the secure area so there are massive waits in the area outside the secure area, and few waits inside. They are redesigning the airport right now, and stressing restaurants with a 'national' appeal, and removing area favorites like Ivar's Seafood Bar. Most locals are already calling a disgrace to Seattle area citizens. Before the pandemic, I traveled to China 4 times a year. I ALWAYS stopped at Ivar's for some take out to eat on the plane. Other people were so jealous that they had not thought of that. Yes. Good planning is better than just going ahead with one person's idea of what it should all look like, according to him/her.

[@sct913]

Vety interesting story, and well presented Peeter. Had only heard bits and pieces of this before watching your video. Regarding the fire supression system, history has consistently demonstrated that important design decisions made for the sake of asethetics rarely turn out well.

[@linux327]

Hopefully only good thing from this, is that it becomes a case study of how important project management and communication are vital to a large project.

[@StritarD]

Tempelhof had as big if not bigger role in Berlin Airlift compared to Tegel. The actual statue is located there, and a famous candy bomber was dropping sweets to kids from Neukoln and Tempelhof neighborhoods.

[@mordo123]

The podcast "How to f*uck up an airport" goes into deep detail on this and is absolutely hilarious. I highly recommend it!

[@henrykweiher7892]

THX, will listen :)

[@susiejones3634]

I was alone on a flight into Tegel in '83, when I was only 13. The 9 year-old sitting next to me was the Captain's son. I remember being surprised by the sudden descent, but he reassured me. When we started to disembark we were first, and he introduced me to his Dad, the Captain. Very different times. ❤ Love your videos, Petter and MentourPilot Team. I wait all week! 😊 You just made me cackle with laughter with your little hi-vis role-playing. 😅

[@leisti]

How were you alone, if the plane had both the captain's son and the captain besides you?

[@Eternal_Tech]

@@leisti By "alone," she probably means without her parents or other family members.

[@susiejones3634]

@@leisti I get it 🤣🤣🤣

[@leisti]

@@susiejones3634 Yeah, sorry, I couldn't resist....

[@susiejones3634]

@@leisti loved it! 🤣🤣👏🏆

[@Lampe2020]

I originally come from northern Germany and I have also noticed some of the problems with Berlin's new airport. When it finally opened years after I (then a small child) had heard of it being massively delayed, I was genuinely surprized.

[@diegorhoenisch62]

An important point to remember is that there are a lot of parties opposed to BER being a success. Lufthansa does not want to have BER as a hub as it is very invested in MUC(Munich). Lufthansa has a lot of political power, particularly with the more conservative political parties(CDU, FDP). Cheers, Alan Tomlinson

[@jazzi_0453]

Well, it would make no sense for Lufthansa to have 3 hubs in Germany and it would make even less sense for them to abandon MUC or FRA. So you can't really blame them. Imo the biggest problem is the loss of Air Berlin.

[@j.q.higgins2245]

Deutsche Bahn, on the other hand, must be among BER's hugest fans. 🤣

[@headstanding_Penguin]

Thing is... There's also a german trainstation debacle, Stuttgart 21, and the German Rail, DB is currently less reliable than the italian rails where in the 1990ies... (which is annoying as a swiss living in an area where some of the trains are run by DB)

[@rafale1981]

My favorite joke about BER was always “Nobody is planning to build an airport here”

[@zonacrocone4804]

This is an East German insider joke but very well adapted. Sadly, the wall was much much more efficient than BER is.

[@rafale1981]

@@zonacrocone4804 read in “erich-accent” it’s especially funny

[@Henning_Rech]

@@rafale1981 Ulbricht's first name is Walter.

[@rafale1981]

@@Henning_Rech thanks, mixed him up with that other geriatric bloke

[@ajg617]

Reminds me of Denver. I flew in to Stapleton on a Monday and was supposed to fly out of DIA Friday. Stapleton was deserted - nothing there. It was all back when I flew back on Friday - out of Stapleton.

[@LtNduati]

I love the fact that they reportedly had escalators that were too short For the record I love Berlin, I've visited twice, plan to visit for Christmas 2023, and I will live there one day, or at least have a second apartment there one day.

[@Wol747]

Hilarious in a - how’d you say it - schadenfreude? way. I knew there had been long delays but not anything like this Monty Pythonesque comedy. I used to operate out of Tempelhof in the sixties and the efficiency of 20minute turnarounds with disembarking, cleaning, crew change, refuelling, catering and embarking was something to behold. Now, of course, we have computers…………. PS I’m pretty deaf now - those of you who worked under the vast canopy with dozens of jets starting, closing down and taxiing will understand!

[@guagadu7804]

As someone who lived in Berlin recently, | hated using the airport every time I had to fly anywhere. Often the travel from my arrival airport to a nearby destination city was faster than getting to my city's airport, which took me an hour, because even through I lived pretty centrally in the city, the bus + train connection connection to the airport took over an hour. Then when I had problems checking in online or throughout Lufthansa's app, the check-in line could take 45 minutes to an hour and was always long enough to block the path of people walking around the check-in areas. The only time I had a good experience at the airport was, believe it or not, flying with EasyJet.

[@robert7567]

It’s an absolute crap of an airport. I take a taxi there - I close my eyes and pay the fare - than taking the train for more than an hour to then stand in queue for another hour.

[@guagadu7804]

@@robert7567 I took the taxi once when I had a lot of luggage, but the taxi cost me 50 euros while taking 30 minutes, so the faster travel time was worth it to me, since I only had to pay a zone-C extension on the s-bahn. The fastest trip I actually had to the airport was on the nightbus, since I lived near Zoologischer Garten, and the n7x does the trip to the airport in like 50 minutes.

[@markloeffler677]

Remind me but I thought the trip to the Airport was Gratis or counted in the price of the ticket! I have not ever paid for a journey to or from the airport!

[@robert7567]

@@markloeffler677 you’ve been fortunate not to have been controlled then 😀 because the train ride to the airport isn’t free, or included in the general fare, to the airport.

[@markloeffler677]

@@robert7567 it is very possible I might have been the luckiest person alive. However the reason behind me was certainty! I remember this clearly however this has since changed obviously. I thought always how smart of the Germans to do that very people orientated! Especially 4 travellers! Not any more now it is 3.80 Euro

[@bastih.5264]

Thanks for summerising the whole project. I can confirm that even the employees of the airport themselves were absolutely surprised by the news of not opening in 2012. To be fair: A lot of stuff seems to be working quite okay at the moment. At least with terminal 1. I can agree that terminal 2 appears to be somewhat of an appendix which isn't really connected to the main terminal, though.

[@steve-marsh]

What a story :D cheers for telling it so well!

[@multirider8997]

Thanks for the recap on a saga i closely followed. We built a house for my father 30km away from BER in 2008 with the idea that the house prices would improve once the airport was completed. Little did we know that it would take almost another decade for it to open... all was not lost as the house prices did improve though 😂

[@vogel4171]

Good video but you forgot to mention that AirBerlin would have tried to make it their big international hub with its operation but they went out of business in 2017, they expanded that rapidly in the 2000s because of this airport more or less. Also you dont even have to go to London or Paris to connect from Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich are two major Hubs here in Germany that you can reach a lot quicker to connect pretty much anywhere in the world so you don’t really need another one.

[@blizzardcrow94]

They had empty Trains driving to the still closed Airport Station since the Tunnel has designed in a way which counted on the train movement for ventilation... :D

[@pramodkrishnamurthy3707]

Amazing video as always Peter! This goes against everything I've heard and read about the "ruthlessly efficient" Germans and my own little experience of working with colleagues in Germany for a couple of years. They were all very competent albeit bureaucratic 😂

[@southcalder]

I remember a few years back having a ticket from LHR to Brandenburg. I was quite looking forward to seeing the new terminal, because Tegel was getting a bit tatty and Schonefeld was a heavily congested dump. About two weeks prior to departure I received an unwelcome email from the airline, my flight would instead land at Tegel. That was the first sign I had that BER was going to be a problem.

[@citylimits8927]

The ironic thing is that Detroit - yes Detroit of all places - rebuilt Metropolitan Airport from the ground up with a fourth parallel main runway and two new terminals, and transformed that airport from the worst in the country to one of the top airports in the nation for customer satisfaction. Northwest Airlines, then Delta Airlines, managed to maintain the strategy of splitting their midwestern operations between Detroit and Minneapolis instead of sending yet another airline hub into Chicago. I’m surprised that a major European capital city couldn’t do better.

[@keithhinke3277]

When I was in Germany in 1960 we flew into Tempelhof. The difference between West and East Berlin was like day vs night. The stores in East Berlin where like what our old movies used to show of general stores in the 1800's on the inside, even made of wood counters and shelves. Big beautiful apartment buildings with curtains in the windows were actually fake shells of about the front half of a building [didn't see any access to any of the rooms]-no one lived there].

[@Notimp0rtant523]

I am in Berlin right now oddly enough, on holiday. Im ersten muss ich sagen, dass Deutschland ein fantastisch Land ist. However, when I was planning my trip, I didn’t even consider flying into Berlin because I had become so accustomed to the delays at Brandenburg, I thought it still had yet to open. So I flew into and out of Frankfurt even though I don’t stay a single night in Frankfurt. Special thanks to the friendly and efficient customs and immigrations officers at Frankfurt airport, who quickly but thoroughly checked me through into the country. German efficiency!

[@marekjakimowicz]

I love to hear what you think about planned Polish hub airport - CPK. There is some controversy on it.

[@LuluDrakonite]

This sounds a bit like the HS2 railway here in the UK 😅 it would be funny if it wasn't so frustrating how it was mismanaged. The little skit about the fire suppression system got a proper belly laugh out of me. Thank you for the palette cleanser after last week's heavy episode 💙✈️

[@ElinT13]

And right you are to laugh about it! Any German who would have proposed such an utterly ridiculous plan B for the fire suppression would have been fired on the spot, probably even before finishing the sentence. And while it is really funny on one side, it makes me blush in embarrassment. We germans call it "fremdschämen", that is when you are embarrassed because of something another person does.😉

[@BerndGiegerich]

Ah, we Germans can do the same with trains, too. The new Stuttgart Central Station is a good example. Construction started in 2010, costs were estimated at 4.5 billions, going live expected for 2019. Now, the start of operations is expected for late 2025, and current cost estimations are around 9.15 billions. And while we do have nice high speed trains, there's only a single dedicated high speed track (Cologne - Frankfurt). Everywhere else, those high speed trains share the track with regional and even freight trains (and Cologne - Frankfurt has two stations in the middle of nowhere, for political reasons...)

[@darryljorden9177]

@@ElinT13 One word: Dusseldorf.

[@majuuorthrus3340]

This was the waste valve for the famous German efficiency, clearly. All the suppressed inefficiency had to go somewhere. Also: what was the actual plan for supressing the fire in the "people wandering around in hi-vis vests looking for smoke" fire suppression system? Or was it just "evacuate the building and hope the fire brigade gets here before too much catches alight"?