Art for Art’s sake. You know Art, don’t you? From the cleaning crew?
We need surrealism to deal with surreality, people. Or maybe we don’t. Hard to say for sure.
A Surrealist Yves Tanguy Painting Was Tossed in Trash at a German Airport – The painting, worth an estimated $340,000, was left behind by a traveler at Düsseldorf Airport and scrapped by a cleaning crew.
If you ask me. So long, Tegel.
Berlin bid farewell Sunday to the German capital’s central Tegel airport, beloved by some and reviled by others, as it shifts all air traffic to a new hub on the outskirts of the city.
On Saturday, airlines moved their last planes stationed at Tegel to the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport Willy Brandt, which finally opened at the end of October nine years late and far above its original budget.
The final scheduled flight took off Sunday afternoon from Tegel, an Air France jet to Paris, a tribute to the first commercial flight from the airport flown by the airline 60 years ago…
The first commercial flights began in 1960, when Air France started regular service to Tegel.
But don’t tell anyone, OK? It’s too embarrassing.
Berlin’s new international airport can open next month after an embarrassing nine-year delay despite the coronavirus pandemic taking a big bite out of air travel, its chief manager said Tuesday…
BER was set to open in 2011 but the date was repeatedly pushed back over a series of issues, including fire safety and corruption.
In the meantime, the cost of the facility exploded to 6.5 billon euros ($7.6 billion) from a 1.7-billion-euro budget initially.
“There won’t be a big party, just an opening.”
Your bag of bones, I mean?
Armenian woman stopped at Munich airport in Germany after husband’s bones found in bag – A woman traveling from Greece said she wanted to return her husband’s remains to his native Armenia. Authorities later deemed the transfer of the bones as lawful.
What do you mean? Berlin’s party joke phantom airport may be opening after all?
Too bad I didn’t keep our plane tickets from 2012 as souvenirs. They showed us departing from Los Angeles (LAX) and arriving at Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER), which was just about to open. But the launch, already delayed the previous year, was again called off at the last minute. So we landed instead at the charming but small Tegel airport (TXL) that dates back to the early Cold War…
To pessimists, BER symbolizes Germany’s bad developments. Its highly publicized bureaucratic and engineering fiascoes have dented the country’s former reputation — not always entirely flattering — of being relentlessly meticulous and punctual. The subtext is that Germany, whether it’s building airports or algorithms, is increasingly leaving economic dynamism to others, especially China.
To optimists, this too is part of Germany’s long historical arc to “normality.” Germans today are more relaxed about their national identity and place in the world than they’ve ever been. That explains why they’ve also been nonchalant about BER’s travails. The truth is, many Germans have secretly been savoring the airport headlines as a font of gossip. Many an awkward dinner party has been saved by boozy debates about whether humans would set foot on Mars before disembarking at BER, or whether it would be more cost-effective to rebuild the capital near a working airport.
And Berlin Brandenburg Airport opens October 31, 2020. Let’s do the math.
So, Berlin is down to just one world-class horrible airport for like five months? Until the next world-class horrible one comes along, I mean? Sheesh. Although with all this Corona going on maybe nobody will even notice.
Personally, I will miss Tegel. Maybe because it was so small and in the middle of town like that. You could walk around the entire main terminal in five minutes. Adieu, Tegel. It was in what used to be called the French Sector, after all.
This comes as the airport has seen a huge drop in passenger numbers, with passengers currently amounting to 1% of normal amounts. The company running the airport is allegedly losing one million Euros per day, so closing the airport will save costs.
The long-delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed (since 2011) opening of the Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) will finally go ahead as planned, planned, planned and planned.
Clever, really. Almost diabolical.
‘No risks’ ahead of Berlin Brandenburg (BER) airport opening in October 2020 – According to its operator, there are no more obstacles to get in the way of the BER airport finally opening its doors in October this year.
“We do not see any risks ahead of the first operations in October 2020.”
That Berlin’s ghost airport could finally, like, actually, you know, well, open? Sends shivers down my spine.
But I don’t believe in ghost airports. That eventually open, I mean. You can’t scare me with that nonsense. So don’t even try.
After a 13-year saga punctuated by scandals, bankruptcies and comical setbacks, Berlin’s new airport could finally open in 2020 – nine years behind schedule.
An exact opening date for Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) – October 31, 2020 – was announced last week, with Dietmar Woidke, Minister President of the German state of Brandenburg.
“This time it will happen.”
Boo!
Flushed with the success of not having been built yet but nobody really seeming to give a shit, Berlin’s hyper-delayed Berlin Brandenburg Airport will soon also not be getting an additional terminal for none of the additional millions of passengers that are almost certainly never going to land here.
Being that the airport was originally planned to open in 2011, Airport operators are playing it safe this time and have scheduled the new terminal to open in October 2074, provided, of course, no unforeseen delays get in the way of all the other unforeseen delays that are invariably going to pop up during non-construction so unforeseenly.
The new airport has defied all clichés of German efficiency: it was meant to open in 2011, but construction problems and technical delays saw the date pushed back repeatedly, leaving the German capital reliant on two small and aging Cold War-era airports.
To just get it over with and close down Berlin’s new non-existent airport before it ever not opens, I mean.
Nobody will be brave enoug, of course.. Not even after this latest (coming) delay. Can you still call them delays when you get to the ten-year mark?
The latest setback is reportedly due to problems with fire protection. Other errors over the years include badly installed cables, escalators that were too short and a roof that was too heavy.
Corruption is also a factor – last year one former airport employee was sentenced to prison for taking bribes and dozens of others have been fined.
Collateral damage includes construction companies, retail outlets and taxi firms forced into bankruptcy and one former Berlin mayor (SPD) forced out of his job.
Zu Tagesspiegel-Erkenntnissen, denen zufolge eine BER-Eröffnung vor 2021 durch die neuen Informationen zunehmend unwahrscheinlich wird, äußert sich die Flughafengesellschaft nicht direkt.
PS: Happy Thanksgiving!
