Airlines Fight to Save Berlin Airport

Airlines Fight to Save Berlin Airport
Expatica.com, Germany

11 November 2003


BERLIN - Airlines servings the German capital's smallest but most
centrally located airport vowed Tuesday they would fight plans by Berlin's
mayor to close it down next year.

Mayor Klaus Wowereit announced Monday that Tempelhof Airport, located just
six kilometres from the city centre, is to be shut on 1 November 2004.

Wowereit said closure was necessary so as not to endanger attempts to
build a new international airport outside Berlin and also because
Tempelhof was running up annual losses of EUR14 million.

But the 13 airlines using Tempelhof said in a statement they would take
legal action to prevent the closure.

"We are ready to go all the way to the European Court," said Andreas
Peter, CEO of the airline Bizair and head of Tempelhof airline interest
group lobby (ICAT).

According to ICAT Tempelhof only makes a loss because it is saddled with
an outdated Nazi era terminal sprawling over 300,000 square metres - half
of which is empty.

Meanwhile, efforts to build Berlin's new airport near the old East Berlin
airport at Schoenefeld south of the city have suffered repeated setbacks
since the 1990 German reunification.

Airport privatization bids have failed and Mayor Wowereit now insists the
new airport will be built with state funding despite the fact that
Berlin's city government is buried under over EUR50 billion of debt.

Closing down Tempelhof and the city's main Tegel airport in former West
Berlin is seen by Wowereit as the best way to guarantee success of the
future airport dubbed Berlin-Brandenburg International.

But the delays in getting the new airport started may mean the German
capital remains stuck in second class status as far as air travel goes.

Germany's main airports are well-established and expanding in Frankfurt,
Munich and Duesseldorf. Berlin, in embarrassing contrast, does not even
offer a single transatlantic flight to North America.

Tempelhof, which has a modest capacity of 1.5 million passengers annually,
is used mainly by business passengers and served by small turbo-prop and
jet planes for flights to other European cities.

Built by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in 1939, Tempelhof served in the 1948 to
1949 Berlin airlift during which vital supplies were flown to Cold War
West Berlin by U.S. and British aircraft after the Soviet Union closed all
land routes in a bid to seal off the city from the West.

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