The European Airports - The World's Biggest Airplane

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The former pirate party politician who chared the berlin parliamentary inquiry into the b e ba airport ceo, rinis wartz, demanded up to 50 % more shops be squeezed into the design. The new duty free and food outlets around tener ent of the whole terminal had to be reorganized, which changed the flow of passengers through the terminal. Shengen's own regulations govern entry into the eu, and they require that passengers be separated into two streams as they transit through an airport. At ba, those separate pathways had been designed already in two thousand and seven, but the new shops ate into the walkways, and whole new routes were created.

Days away from the planned 2012 opening party, nothing seemed wrong at BER. What was really going on? On this episode, we look at how the airport managers and politicians were messing with the plans, even as construction was underway.

They demanded a 70% increase in terminal space to add hundreds of extra shops, and requested special double story boarding gates for the supersized Airbus A380, even though no airline requested it. Instead of a working fire safety system, they planned to hire up to 800 people to act as human fire alarms.

Despite multiple warnings, the airport board pushed ahead with opening party plans right up until May 8, 2012, when the first major delay was announced. We meet the man who put a stop to it all – Stephan Loge, the administrator of the Brandenburg building department.

Also on this episode, Joel and Jöran visit the Schönefeld S-Bahn station in search of the empty train that runs nightly to the unfinished airport to keep air moving through the tunnels.

Presented by Radio Spaetkauf and RadioEins Producers: Joel Dullroy, Maisie Hitchcock, Jöran Mandik and Daniel Stern Music: Ducks! Artwork: Jim Avignon