Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport, Schönefeld, Germany

The City of Berlin, as would be expected from the capital of a major European country like Germany, has a major problem with rapidly expanding volumes of air traffic.

The current airport facilities at Tempelhof, Tegel and Schönefeld are inadequate for future projected air traffic to the city. Tegel and Tempelhof cannot be expanded as they are surrounded by urban areas and the only real option for expansion of airport facilities is Schönefeld Airport in the southeast of Berlin.

Berlin City Council has taken the stance that the completion of massive new airport facilities is a matter of need as well as of prestige. The airport has a current employment effect in the area of 33,600 and by 2012 this is expected to increase to 73,000.

The only option for them was to expand Schönefeld Airport to form the new Berlin Brandenburg International (BBI) Airport, which will be capable of handling all of Berlin's air traffic needs, and to close Tegel and Tempelhof.

The plans for BBI were first put forward in 2000 but due to legal and financing problems the airport expansion was delayed.Schönefeld will be expanded by 970ha to a total area of 1,470ha. In October 2008 the German government put forward guarantees to fully secure the whole amount of the €2.4bn loan to build the new BBI airport.

Construction and court case

The official construction permit for the airport expansion at Schönefeld was granted in 2003. Following that, the finance was finalised and detailed planning and preparations made for the construction.

The main obstacle to construction starting properly was a court case about the expansion, which was finally heard in the Bundesverwaltungsegericht (German administrative court) in February 2006 as part of a test case for The Transportation Route Planning Acceleration Act.

After a ten-year administrative court battle, in March 2006 the Bundesverwaltungsegericht in Leipzig gave the go-ahead for the project by ruling in favour of Berlin-Brandenburg against challenges by residents and municipalities near the future airport (there was no appeal allowed against the decision and compensation was set along with restrictions on night flights).

Construction started in early September 2006 and the airport is scheduled to be completed by late 2011. When the airport opens at the end of 2011/2012 it will have the capacity to handle 22–25 million passengers a year. Depending on the passenger development, the airport can be expanded modularly for up to 40 million passengers.

Tempelhof Airport was closed on 30 October 2008 (two years later than previously agreed and amongst a storm of protest) and Tegel Airport will be closed in 2011. The Tempelhof site with the listed terminal building could now be used for a new park, business centre or eco city. Protesters demanded that Tempelhof stay open but the airport only had 300,000 passengers in 2007 and cost €9m ($11.2m) to run each year.

Berlin-Brandenburg airport expansion

The Berlin-Schönefeld northern runway was closed and demolished in mid-2008, the existing southern runway is being lengthened from 3,000m to 3,600m, and a completely new runway constructed south of the new BBI Terminal. This will give the airport two parallel runways with a midfield terminal building to save space.

The airport will be equipped with gates, runways and taxiways capable of handling even the largest superjumbos such as the new A380. The airport will also be integrated into a new road and rail infrastructure to allow good communication and short travelling distance to the centre of Berlin and the rest of Germany.

Transport facilities include a direct motorway connection to the A113. The contract for the road was awarded to Porr Deutschland GmbH and Matthai Bauunternehmen in October 2007 and include a 700m connection road to the A113 and a connecting road to the B96a and A111 (the contract involves the construction of 19 bridges). The new section of motorway opened on 23 May 2008 and this gives the new airport full connectivity with the German motorway network.

In addition the high-speed ICE train station (two ICE trains can be accommodated at one time) which will be directly underneath the terminal started construction in October 2007. The six platform station (two city and suburban tracks and four long-distance platforms) is being constructed by Capital Airport BBI on behalf of Deutsche Bahn and will be 405m long and 60m wide; 263 piles (pile raft foundation) are in and the structural framework for the station is due to be complete in 2009 (although the first 185m was complete in July 2008 as this has to be completed before work on the terminal building could begin).

Other companies involved in the station construction are Schalerbau Berlin, Berger Bau, Bleck and Sohne Hoch-und Tiefbau and Ingenieur Gesellschaft mbH.

An express train connection will be able to transport passengers into Berlin city centre in under 20 minutes. The city will be only 30 minutes away by car or shuttle bus.

The BBI will allow Berlin the distinction of being the European capital with the shortest distance to an international airport.

The airport is being constructed to serve an initial 22-25 million passengers by 2011, with the possibility of undertaking additional expansion work to increase that number to 40 million by 2030. The BBI is also planned to have an airport centre, which will contain a range of hotels, retail areas, cafes, bars, restaurants and conference centres.

Privatisation of Berlin Airport system and finance

Part of the complexity of the project has surrounded the reluctance to privatise Berlin Brandenburg Flughafen now known as Flughafen Berlin-Schönefeld GmbH (FBS), the owner of the Berlin airports. The company was set up as a publicly-owned operation, with the majority of shares going to the government of Brandenburg (37%) and the authority of Berlin (37%); the rest is held by the federal government (26%).

The conclusion to the negotiations came in November 2002 when the investment consortium, Berlin-Brandenburg International Partner (BBIP), led by IVG Holding (Flughafen Wien, Deutsche Bank AG, Caisse des Depots) and Hotchief Airport GmbH, offered to buy 100% of the shares for a consideration of €290m. The BBIP consortium also agreed to provide a total of €650m of capital and to acquire any additional land needed for the airport expansion.

The plans called for €1.7bn to be invested, including technical equipment. 75% of the required services were opened for bids to encourage competition. The federal government agreed to bear the costs for the railway (€496m) and road infrastructure (€76m).

In addition, the plans called for several villages to be displaced. The government agreed to resettle the people of Diepensee (300) and Selchow at a cost of €32.7m and €81.8m, respectively.

The airport concession period, as part of the build operate transfer (BOT) agreement, is 99 years. To prevent any problematic dealings with this airport expansion an independent organisation, Transparency International Deutschland e.V, was appointed to oversee all further business dealings.

Construction preparation and scheduling

The village sites have been occupied by archaeologists contracted to dig for any important findings before the site is lost forever beneath runway construction. A 1.9km seepage basin has been constructed south of the current airport to handle wastewater from the construction site and prevent contamination of the groundwater.

A schedule has now been set for the construction. In the latter half of 2006 the activities will include: set-up of the construction site; building of the construction roads; set up of the central concrete mixing plant; set up of the construction site areas; beginning of the relocation of lines; request for tenders for the initial construction work and the building of the runway connections to the northern BBI runway.

The contract for the construction of the southern runway and aprons was awarded to EUROVIA in August 2007 and construction began in September 2007(will involve 1.4 million square metres of aviation surface).

Work in 2008 will include the start of the terminal building (started construction in July 2008) and operational roads construction, and demolition of the current northern runway (new runway will be 4,000m). By 2010 the work will be well underway and the anticipated activities will include the start of operations for the fire department, a building for special equipment, winter services, and ground traffic services.

In late 2011 there will be trial operations of the new terminal and master technical system. The airport will then open about a month later, by December 2011.

Airport facilities

The terminal is being designed by JSK International Architekten und Ingenieure GmbH, Generalplanungsgesellschaft mbH and IGK-IGR Ingenieurgesellschaft Kruck mbH.

The building will have a total floor space of 220,000m². There will be seven levels with two underground levels for railway infrastructure (U1 and 2).

The ground floor E0 will be for arrivals and baggage claim, level E1 will be for departures, check-in, security and retail, level E2 will be for waiting rooms and offices, level E3 will be lounges and finally level E4 will be a terrace for passengers.

There will be four check-in islands with 80 desks and also over 200 self-service machines and the required bag drop-off points. There will also be 40 security monitoring points checking prior boarding cards (internet check-in).

The baggage claim hall will be 20,000m² and have eight carousels. The boarding pier will be 620m long (extendable to 740m) with 16 jetways and plans for ten walking board positions.

Finance for the new terminal includes a €350m bridging loan for BBI from a banking consortium led by Commerzbank and including Helaba, KfW/IPEX and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation SMBC each contributing €75m and also the Berlin Investment Bank and Brandenburg Investment Bank, each providing a loan of €25m.

BBI InfoTower

The airport will also have an observation platform for passengers and visitors (80 people) called the InfoTower. The architects are Kusus + Kusus Architekten who have produced an innovative triangular section metal clad tower.

The tower will be 32m high and of steel construction with two 60m² observation platforms (one covered one open). It will be constructed around a central core containing a lift with a spiral staircase around the core.

The visitor pavilion will also include space for exhibitions (125m²), marketing and restaurant (16m²), offices (10m²) and sanitary facilities (15m²).

Contractual difficulties

In 1999, the German construction company Hochtief won the bid, but it was thrown out due to allegations of industrial espionage and viewing of sealed bids. Hochtief was excluded from bidding a second time by the German courts. Hotchief was then exonerated and no charges were brought and they were subsequently allowed to take part in the process again.

IVG Holding and Hochtief, previously bitter rivals, formed a new consortium and managed to forge a deal to build the new airport.