Airports: Berlin boost

Following a court decision that overruled long-standing environmental objections, work on the new Brandenburg airport is to start later this year

Europe’s aviation industry received a rare piece of good news on capacity earlier this year when Berlin’s new Brandenburg International airport was given the go-ahead, following a federal court decision in March that overruled environmental objections to the project.

As a result, work will start later this year on the site of the existing Schoenefeld airport to build a facility capable of handling 22 million passengers a year.

There is little doubt that the new airport is badly needed. Easyjet, for example, handled 2.5 million passengers last year in Schoenefeld’s Terminal B, which was originally designed to handle 800,000 passengers.

Overall, Berlin’s three-airport system of Schoenefeld, Tegel and Tempelhof is operating close to its limits. The budget travel boom in particular has seen traffic figures rise from a combined 12 million in 2002 to 17 million today.

Some 5.2 million people passed through Schoenefeld last year, and although capacity has been expanded to around 7 million with the addition of the new Terminal D (dedicated to low-cost carrier germanwings) things are clearly getting tight. Meanwhile, Tegel is at full capacity. There will not be much relief until the new airport opens in 2011, when Tegel will be closed (smaller Tempelhof will shut next year).

Even so, the Berlin Airports group feels it cannot afford to keep things on hold waiting for the new airport to open. “Our philosophy is to get airlines into Berlin now to provide a springboard for Brandenburg,” says Dieter Johannsen-Roth, managing director for Berlin Airports.

Essentially, the group wants to ensure that it has a critical mass of traffic when the switchover takes place. Nearby Leipzig/Halle airport has struggled to fill its 7 million capacity since its Terminal B was added in 1996 – volumes last year were around the 2 million mark. “The danger then is that you have problems refinancing. We would rather grow with the market,” says Johannsen-Roth.

Against this background, Berlin Airports has taken a proactive marketing stance. As Johannsen-Roth admits, Berlin suffered from an image problem after Lufthansa cancelled Tegel’s only direct service to the USA (a daily Washington flight) in the wake of 9/11.

The group’s hard work seems to have paid off, with Continental and Delta Air Lines serving Tegel from New York as part of their expansionist international strategies. There has also been a breakthrough in the Middle East market, with Qatar Airways serving Tegel with a long-range version of the Airbus A319.

Much of the Schoenefeld’s success in recent years has been with low-cost carriers, which now account for every second passenger passing through Berlin’s airports. Some 70% of Schoenefeld’s traffic flies on low-cost carriers, although with 3.8 million passengers in 2005, Lufthansa remains the airport group’s single largest customer.

It is clear the new Brandenburg airport is going to have to cater for a wide range of airline customers. Despite this, Berlin Airports has rejected the trend towards dedicated low-cost terminals and will house all airlines in a midfield facility between two parallel runways, with an initial capacity of 22 million. This can be expanded to 35-40 million through modules or satellites.

Brandenburg will be what Johannsen-Roth describes as a “one-terminal-fits-all” concept. How this will work in practice is under discussion.

Catering for budget needs
Budget carriers are already making their views known. “We are in favour of the new airport, but want to make sure it is built the right way,” says easyJet’s country manager for Germany, John Kohlsaat. “We want to see it designed for point-to-point services and quick turnarounds – as long as it fits in with the price.” EasyJet does not expect fee rises for the new airport. “We bring in a lot of traffic, and we expect costs to be in line with performance,” he says.

Air Berlin too wants to obtain a cost-effective airport focused on point-to-point operations. It is interested in increasing transfer traffic through Berlin, but notes that Germany already has major hubs at Frankfurt and Munich, while Air Berlin itself has established hubs at Nuremberg and Düsseldorf. In any case, Air Berlin says that the curfew conditions that came with the court ruling authorising the go-ahead will prohibit hub operations.

But Berlin Airports is confident that this problem can be overcome and believes it has a case for allowing late night and early morning flights. ■

Source: Airline Business