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How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6 Billion Embarrassment

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P

Piecake

Member
Inside Germany’s profligate (Greek-like!) fiasco called Berlin Brandenburg
The inspectors could hardly believe what they were seeing. Summoned from their headquarters near Munich, the team of logistics, safety, and aviation experts had arrived at newly constructed Berlin Brandenburg International Willy Brandt Airport in the fall of 2011 to begin a lengthy series of checks and approvals for the €600 million ($656 million) terminal on the outskirts of the German capital. Expected to open the following June, the airport, billed as Europe’s “most modern,” was intended to handle 27 million passengers a year and crown Berlin as the continent’s 21st century crossroads.

The team of inspectors, known as ORAT, for Operations Readiness and Airport Transfer, brought in a dummy plane and volunteers as test passengers. They examined everything from baggage carousels and security gates to the fire protection system. The last was an especially high priority: None could forget the 1996 fire that roared through Düsseldorf Airport’s passenger terminal, killing 17.

When they simulated a fire, though, the system went haywire. Some alarms failed to activate. Others indicated a fire, but in the wrong part of the terminal. The explanation was buried in the 55-mile tangle of wiring that had been laid, hastily, beneath the floors of the building where ORAT technicians soon discovered high-voltage power lines alongside data and heating cables—a fire hazard in its own right. That wasn’t all. Smoke evacuation canals designed to suck out smoke and replace it with fresh air failed to do either. In an actual fire, the inspectors determined, the main smoke vent might well implode.
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The next day, in a hall packed with government officials and journalists, Schwarz sat grimly behind a table with four other officials, including Mayor Wowereit, and announced the unthinkable: The airport wouldn’t open as scheduled. The inaugural bash and overnight move from Tegel were scuttled.

It was merely a prelude to a debacle that is still unfolding. Three years later, Berlin Brandenburg has wrecked careers and joined two other bloated projects—Stuttgart 21, a years-late railway station €2 billion over budget, and an €865 million concert hall in Hamburg—in tarnishing Germany’s reputation for order, efficiency, and engineering mastery.

At the very moment Merkel and her allies are hectoring the Greeks about their profligacy, the airport’s cost, borne by taxpayers, has tripled to €5.4 billion. Two airport company directors (including Schwarz), three technical chiefs, the architects, and dozens if not hundreds of others have been fired or forced to quit, or have left in disgust. The government spends €16 million per month just to prevent the huge facility from falling into disrepair. According to the most optimistic scenarios, it won’t check in its first passengers until 2017, and sunny pronouncements have long since given way to “catastrophe,” “farce,” and “the building site of horror.” There is a noted German word for the delight some took in the mess, too.
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The board says construction should be completed by the middle of 2016, to be followed by fresh rounds of testing by ORAT crews. If all goes according to plan, says Mühlenfeld, the airport should begin operations in 2017. Berliners are trying to remain patient as tourism is booming and growth is limited by a lack of flights. “The number of defects that they’ve found has grown to 150,000, including 85,000 serious ones,” says Vogel.

“You have to say that it is a really cool airport,” Delius says. “The architecture is good. The concept is good. It is very easygoing, easy to navigate. It should please a lot of people—if it ever gets finished.”
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/featu...stic-airport-became-a-6-billion-embarrassment

I didnt think it was possible to make US government construction seem extremely competent, but Germany certainly has done it. A 600 million dollar airport turned into a 6 billion dollar and counting airport, and who knows if it will even open? Crazy.

The whole article is worth reading since it does give a good history of how this situation turned into such a clusterfuck.
 
Z

Zeyphersan

Banned
I'll have to talk to my uncle about this. He's from Germany and is a pretty big government conservative, so he can't be happy at ALL about a taxpayer project ballooning like this
 
S

SwiftDeath

Member
So if I understand this correctly the initial opening date was supposed to be 2012? 0_0

Like 5 billion extra down the drain is crazy but 5 extra years???? What are you even doing?

Also craziest idea I've ever heard for a fire system

Schwarz also appointed an emergency task force to propose solutions that would allow the airport to open on time. In March 2012 the group submitted its stopgap: Eight hundred low-paid workers armed with cell phones would take up positions throughout the terminal. If anyone smelled smoke or saw a fire, he would alert the airport fire station and direct passengers toward the exits. Never mind that the region’s cell phone networks were notoriously unreliable, or that some students would be stationed near the smoke evacuation channels, where in a fire temperatures could reach 1,000F.

It was, says Martin Delius, “an idiotic plan.” Delius is a physicist and member of Berlin’s parliament who has conducted an extensive investigation of the airport’s troubled infrastructure. “They thought that this would at least eliminate the need for wiring,” he says, “because [the spotters] could see with their own eyes if there is a mass of smoke lower than 6 feet above the ground.”
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MisterFalcon

MisterFalcon

Member
That's a nice big pile of Schadenfreude right there. They even had the obligatory Thomas Friedman 'everything is better outside the US' in there.
But if this had happened in Greece you bet the airport would have opened on schedule with 800 human fire detectors with the inspector being bought off or overruled by his superiors.
 
M

Mimosa97

Member
Sorry but seeing germans finally failing at something kinda warms my heart. Just shows that they're humans after all :)

I'm sure they can take a hit or two every 20 years or so.
 
N

Nightbird

Member
The Airport has become a Joke for Germans.
It's basically our Version of Half Life 3 (we will never see the Day it's done)
 
W

wanderingprostheyltite

Member
Rainbowgun said:
The Airport has become a Joke for Germans.
It's basically our Version of Half Life 3 (we will never see the Day it's done)
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I'm betting your airport becomes operational first. Hey at least it's not China's nightmare infrastructure of tons of empty high rises, or the monstrosity that was the Russian dome made for the last Olympics that is now empty and will never be used again.
 
S

SalvaPot

Member
wanderingprostheyltite said:
I'm betting your airport becomes operational first. Hey at least it's not China's nightmare infrastructure of tons of empty high rises, or the monstrosity that was the Russian dome made for the last Olympics that is now empty and will never be used again.
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Or the Brazil World Cup Stadium that is on the middle of the Jungle and was only used for about 3 games, to be then abandoned.
 
M

Mimosa97

Member
PBalfredo said:
If only there were a word for that...
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It was only a few weeks ago that I learned what schadenfreude meant lol

But honestly news like this don't make me happy, i just feel like it's reassuring to see germans failing at something from time to time :)
 
A

A Fish Aficionado

I am going to make it through this year if it kills me
Ah, schadenfreude.

Will probably be spun by some "foreign involvement, or corruption".

I really can't believe how neocon their media is.
 
I

industrian

will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
I guess I don't feel as bad about the Scottish Parliament building afterall. Same goes with the squinty bridge. And the Edinburgh Trams.
 
D

Dryk

Member
Wow, they managed to fail time, spec AND budget. You were supposed to pick two guys.

Condom said:
You see it too often, government projects being far more expensive than projected.
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At a guess it's usually lack of oversight + lowball estimates + tendering to the lowest bidder with no understanding of how much time/money a project would reasonably take.
 
K

Kölsch Bloot

Member
Wowereit. 'Nuff said

244972
 
E

El Topo

Member
I'm surprised that desaster took that long to find its way into foreign media. At least you don't know yet about Stuttgart 21 or Elbe Philharmonic Hall.
 
K

Kölsch Bloot

Member
El Topo said:
I'm surprised that desaster took that long to find its way into foreign media. At least you don't know yet about Stuttgart 21 or Elbe Philharmonic Hall.
Click to expand...

They are at least mentioned in the article. But the shit going down at BER is laughable, really. Might as well have torn it down and tried again.

Haven't heard anything about S21 or "Elbphilharmonie" in a while though.
 
C

Condom

Member
Dryk said:
At a guess it's usually lack of oversight + lowball estimates + tendering to the lowest bidder with no understanding of how much time/money a project would reasonably take.
Click to expand...
Yup, some people blame the lack of responsibility too.
The one behind this project should essentially speak to the people and explain what went wrong.
 
D

Despera

Banned
When they simulated a fire, though, the system went haywire. Some alarms failed to activate. Others indicated a fire, but in the wrong part of the terminal. The explanation was buried in the 55-mile tangle of wiring that had been laid, hastily, beneath the floors of the building where ORAT technicians soon discovered high-voltage power lines alongside data and heating cables—a fire hazard in its own right. That wasn’t all. Smoke evacuation canals designed to suck out smoke and replace it with fresh air failed to do either. In an actual fire, the inspectors determined, the main smoke vent might well implode.
Click to expand...
Jesus christ what a mess.
 
T

Tugatrix

Member
You are not fooling anyone Germans, we know you are just like us the southerns and this just prove it, we see you when you bankrupt
 
P

PdotMichael

Banned
Tugatrix said:
You are not fooling anyone Germans, we know you are just like us the southerns and this just prove it, we see you when you bankrupt
Click to expand...

The same kind of Germans who built a subway line with just three stations without that the line is connected to the general subway network.

You can only love Berlin.
 
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