BERLIN — The outlet of Berlin’s unusual airport on Oct. 31 will occur without fanfare, operators dispute, a nod to the prolonged delays and big mark overrun since construction started in 2006.

Airport boss Engelbert Luetke Daldrup conceded Tuesday that the repeated postponement from the once-promised opening date in 2012, blamed on construction and technical complications, had made Berlin and Germany “a laughing stock.”

“We German engineers hold been ashamed,” he suggested newshounds in the capital.

The charges, which shot up from an customary worth range of 2.7 billion euros to almost 6 billion euros ($7 billion), hold been “now not acceptable,” Luetke Daldrup acknowledged.

As such, the opening will seemingly be low key, he mentioned. “There’ll seemingly be no mountainous celebration. We’re simply going to begin.”

The Berlin Brandenburg Airport, additionally acknowledged simply as BER, will replace the city’s two minute Frigid Battle-expertise airports, Schoenefeld and Tegel. The feeble will seemingly be venerable as a third terminal for the adjacent unusual airport, whereas the latter will seemingly be closed for factual after 60 years of service.

Tegel, which was once located in the French-managed sector of West Berlin when it opened in 1960, will receive a send-off sooner than it come what would possibly closes on Nov. 8, mentioned Luetke Daldrup. The final departure will seemingly be an Air France flight to Paris.

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The unusual airport will seemingly be Germany’s third-supreme in terms of passenger numbers, at the relieve of Frankfurt and Munich.

Luetke Daldrup mentioned operators fright the coronavirus pandemic would possibly maybe suggest that the file assortment of 36 million passengers seen by the present two airports final year is never always in actuality done again until 2024.

He called for more prolonged-haul slots for the unusual airport to assemble determined passengers from Asia and the Middle East can flit on to Berlin.