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Berlin airport will lose '€150 million a year'

DPA/The Local
DPA/The Local - [email protected]
Berlin airport will lose '€150 million a year'
The over budget and delayed Berlin Brandenburg Airport Photo: DPA

Berlin’s hopeless new airport could continue to cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of euros even after it opens, according to an economic study.

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Research, by economist Friederich Thießen, shows that even if no more money than the current €4.7 billion is poured into Berlin Brandenburg Airport, losses could reach €150 million every year - meaning the disastrous project could continue to burden public finances.

The €4.7 billion spent so far has not been enough to finish the airport, which was supposed to open in 2012. It still has no start date. And Thießen’s calculations do not include an extra €1.1 billion which airport chief executive Hartmut Mehdorn has asked for.

The economist from Chemnitz looked at the airport’s potential income from fees and sales in terminal shops, for the study commissioned by the Green Party, which was presented in Potsdam outside Berlin on Wednesday.

Thießen said he had been very generous to the airport in his report, upping its revenue and taking the best case scenario for its costs. But the results still seem to be a disaster. Berlin Brandenburg would have to increase landing charges and the price of products on sale in its terminal building to an unrealistic level to make money, Thießen argued.

The study found that even if traffic grew, the airport would not escape its financial dilemma. Its best hope was to develop neighbouring Schönefeld airport as a budget airline hub.

But the airport’s management attacked the report as “dubious” and “unrealistic”.

A spokesman said: “Mr Thießen has in the past questioned the economic viability of Frankfurt and Munich airports. Nothing new was to be expected from his study.”

SEE ALSO: When did Germans forget how to build?

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