F
R

1
-
2
0
0
1

BERLIN SEEKS HUB FUNCTION

The original Berliner Leierkastenmann belted out a cheery song of "Off to the fight, Torero" and Berlin's Governing Mayor, Eberhard Diepgen, distributed teddy bears, while the managers of Sri Lankan Airlines were flabbergasted at their reception in Berlin-Schönefeld. From the stunned expression on the face of Sri Lankan Chief Executive Officer, Peter Hill, it was evident that the Asians had never before experienced such "red carpet treatment" at a new destination. Since the end of October the new Asian route has linked Berlin Schönefeld with Colombo twice a week, with an intermediate stop in Dubai.

This exuberant welcome from the people of Berlin and Brandenburg is understandable when one considers that Sri Lankan Airlines is one of the few new longhaul carriers to operate services to a city which, despite being the capital city of Germany, has not up to now been exactly well endowed with intercontinental flights. Berlin is actually planning to extend Schönefeld, formerly the East German airport in Berlin, into the city's only airport, "Berlin-Brandenburg International" (BBI), by 2007 and to close down the two other existing airports, Tempelhof and Tegel. This was all planned in the early days following reunification, but when the two Länder of Berlin and Brandenburg failed to merge, the project seemed to lose some of its impetus. Similarly, there has been less fuss lately about the proposed closure of these two airports.

Instead, Berlin's Governing Mayor, Eberhard Diepgen, explained to FLUG REVUE that none of Berlin's existing airport capacity would be closed until at least the same capacity was available at the BBI airport. In other words, if the opening of BBI is deferred, then the closure of Tempelhof and Tegel will also be postponed.

The contractors will be hard pushed to complete BBI by 2007 as per schedule. And even if the two candidate consortia, IVG and Hochtief, a short time ago finally agreed to work closely together, subject to compliance with the legislation on cartels, the capital city seems to be gearing itself up for a prolonged period of transition up to the opening of BBI airport. Thus, Lufthansa, which had already "finally" taken its leave of the inner-city Tempelhof airport, is now planning to use that airport, which has a long history, in future as an "overflow" for the chronically overloaded main airport of Berlin Tegel. In fact "TXL" has for years been handling more passengers than its theoretical terminal capacity.

Then it was in Tegel of all places that Lufthansa announced its latest surprise, that starting with the summer 2001 flight schedule the airline would after much hesitation be resuming direct flights from Berlin to the USA, in this case to Washington DC. Whether the new service to America marks the beginning of a renaissance in Lufthansa long-haul flights from Berlin which many local patriots have long dreamed of, or whether the new route is simply a matter of testing the market remains to be seen. A number of airlines have been complaining for some time that too few full-price flights operate out of Berlin. It is these "high-yield" flights which the airlines rely on to make their profits. Only in September Lufthansa's network management and marketing director, Ralf Teckentrup, told FLUG REVUE that Berlin might now be the one base in the Lufthansa network which was best placed to cope with passenger growth, yet the airline could not yet make any decision about flights to America, particularly in view of the feared low proportion of tickets which would be "high-yield".

Lufthansa's new decision to fly longhaul flights from Tegel is unfortunately also a decision against Schönefeld. For this airport on the southern edge of the city which has recently undergone a full-scale renovation and also has the best connections to local, regional and long-distance trains, has so far been unable to attract the new streams of passengers it had hoped for. If construction of BBI airport should now slip and the division of roles between Tempelhof and Tegel in the interim should become more confused, then the city can consign its dream of an international hub to the files, despite its two new longhaul routes. At least the latest surprising agreement between the two privatisation rivals is a positive signal in the direction of what hopefully will be the speedy development of BBI.

From page 28 of FLUG REVUE 1/2001