Sad news for the long-delayed Brandenburg International Airport in Berlin: According to German newspaper The Local, the airport has a whopping 66,000 problems that need to be fixed before it can open.
The BZ newspaper reported that an eight-month assessment of the project reported that it had seen the concluding reports for the most important areas of the airport, which shows that 34,000 of the issues were relevant to getting permission to open, while 5,845 were listed as critical by the report.
The most significant problems are reportedly related to the fire alarm system, the same problem that caused the initial delay back in June 2012. That delay caused significant problems for airlines that had planned to use the new airport, and were forced instead to continue using the Schönefeld and Tegel airports. The opening was initially pushed back to March of this year, and then delayed yet again. According to The Local, the most recent estimate for a soft opening is now spring 2014, while the facility may not be fully open and operational until early 2015.
Initial cost estimates of €1.2 billion have long been ditched, and the entire project is now expected to cost around €5 billion.