Berlin Brandenburg Willy Brandt Airport is open at last

The biggest ever single infrastructure programme in the Federal Republic of Germany was officially opened yesterday.

The first aircraft landed at Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg Willy Brandt  (Berlin Brandenburg Willy Brandt  Airport) yesterday, nine years late.

The original cost of the airport was €2.3 billion, so far €7 billion has been spent on Germany's biggest airport.

In the next weeks Berlin's two passenger airports, Tegel and Schönefeld will close their doors.

The opening ceremony yesterday was a low-key event because of Covid but also because of the of the many embarrassments that have been caused over the years.

Hartmut Mehdorn, who was appointed CEO of the airport in 2013, said yesterday that it will be the last airport to be built in Germany.

BER was designed to handle 27 million passengers a year. In 2019, more than 35 million people passed through Tegel and Schönefeld, Berlin's existing overburdened airports.

Pandemic fears aside, tourism analysts project steady growth in visitors to the German capital.

Willy Brandt was a German chancellor and mayor of Berlin.