BER Supervisory Board meeting: €250 million more for construction, additional capital requirement re

In an in camera meeting held today, the Supervisory Board of Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg GmbH approved an additional €250 million for the construction budget to complete Berlin Brandenburg Airport. Due to the reallocation of funds within the budget, the additional capital required by the airport operating company remains unchanged at €1.2 billion.

At the meeting, the Supervisory Board also discussed the current status of the notification procedure for the additional capital requirement submission to the European Commission in Brussels. Prof. Dr. Rainer Schwarz, Chief Executive Officer of the airport operator stated: "The relevant documents have been handed in to the Commission, and we expect a decision to be reached in a few weeks."

Schwarz also reported on the latest traffic figures from Schoenefeld and Tegel, which for November showed a five per cent increase over the same month of the previous year. "This year, we expect to pass the milestone of 25 million passengers per year for the first time."

In the morning, the Chief Operating Officer, Horst Amann, gave the members of the Supervisory Board a guided tour through the terminal building and informed them about the current status of the construction work on the airport. At present, around 300 people are employed on the building site, predominantly in the problem areas cable lines and fire safety systems. "I would have liked to be able to see more work being completed here, but we are absolutely within our deadline." Several of the cable line sections, said Amann, have been tidied and the first smoke control barriers on the conveyor belts that link different levels have been installed. Amann also said that an initial test series of a total of around 30 hot gas smoke tests had commenced. These tests, which will be carried out until the end of February 2013, will be used to ensure that the smoke extraction system is fully functional.