Touching down the other week at Berlin’s
Schönefeld Airport
was not at all what I anticipated, and was certainly not what I expected of the
capital of the richest and most economically powerful country in Europe.
Walking across the tarmac and into the tin-roofed immigration and Passport
Control building reminded me of arriving in some tin-pot third world capital,
and only served to reinforce my sense of bewilderment. Granted I had flown in
using a budget airline, but then I have been to several other European capitals
using the same carrier without this strange sense of something not being quite
right.
It wasn’t meant to be like this, and if things had gone to
plan my arrival would have been quite different. A few words of explanation,
coupled with some history might go some way to explain this conundrum as to
why. Until quite recently the German capital was served by three separate
airports; Templehof, the original pre-war airport, and the closest to the city
centre, was deemed too small to handle today’s large jet airliners and has now
closed. This leaves Tegel and Schönefeld, both of which are post World War II
creations. Tegel was hurriedly constructed in late 1949 during the Berlin
airlift, to enable essential supplies of food and fuel to be flown in by the
Western Allies, in response to the blockade imposed on the city by the Soviet
Union. Schönefeld on the other hand, was built by the Soviets as
the airport serving the eastern half of the divided city, and for decades after
was the principal airport for East Berlin. It shows; the
place still has that East European, former Soviet-bloc feel to it.
And yet across from Schönefeld,
and clearly visible from the runway, stands the brand new glistening terminal
buildings of Berlin Brandenburg Airport; the state of the art, ultra-modern
replacement for all three of he capital’s existing airports. Originally
scheduled to open in 2010, Brandenburg
was just weeks from its revised opening date of June 2012, when major flaws
were discovered in the airports’ safety and communication systems, and was
refused a Fire Safety Certificate by the local authority. Plans to move
operations by all the airlines using the current airports were hurriedly put on
hold, as it soon became apparent the commissioning and hand-over of Brandenburg
could not go ahead, and nearly two years on there is still no date given for
its opening.
Well an inauspicious arrival was made up for by a most enjoyable stay in a good
hotel, situated in the pleasant Charlottenburg area of West Berlin, and by
wall-to-wall sunshine coupled with unseasonably high temperatures for early
March ; weather that was destined to last all week. In the next post I will be writing about the very pleasant time my son and I had in the German capital, and will be listing reasons as to why you should visit there as well.
