Berlin's airport operator has dismissed the chief executive of the future Brandenburg hub, Rainer Schwarz, and revealed intermediate investment plans for the existing Tegel and Schönefeld airports after the flagship gateway's planned opening had once again been postponed on 7 January.
The supervisory board of the operating company, Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg, gathered on 16 January to restructure the senior management team and detail its own leadership changes, which had already been outlined last week.
Schwarz, who has been chief executive and commercial director for the Brandenburg hub since 2006, has been dismissed with immediate effect.
Schwarz managed the Brandenburg project together with Horst Amann, chief operations officer, who had been recruited after the delay last May and remains in place.
But henceforth the new airport will be led by three senior executives, including an additional chief financial officer.
Talks with applicants for both the vacant chief executive and CFO posts will soon be held, says Matthias Platzeck, prime minister of the state of Brandenburg and new head of the supervisory board.
Platzeck succeeds Berlin's mayor, Klaus Wowereit, who had been at the supervisory board's helm since 2001.
Rainer Bomba, state secretary in Germany's federal transport ministry, succeeds Ralf Christophers as head of the supervisory board's project committee for the Brandenburg hub.
It will take several months to complete the terminal's assessment, to determine a "reliable timetable" for the necessary changes, and to set a new opening date, says Platzeck. This will require "greater control" from the supervisory board than in the past, he adds.
Separately, the airport operator says it plans to invest a double-digit million euro sum to improve the existing hubs in Tegel and Schönefeld. This will focus in particular on the facilities in Tegel.
The measure will be determined in consultation with airlines and revealed to the public in due course.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
