Wow, there is so much space around Berlin I don’t even know where to start with this, there’s even an airstrip in town still. I know it’s a park now but seriously of all the major cities I’ve lived in building a new airport should be relatively easy... unless it’s a conscious decision to prefer the train?

Tegel is horrible but it’s also really quick - you can and I have arrived 30mins before a flight and make it just fine.

Oh BER looks like the rarest of things, a German construction disaster! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport

The Berlin mention is a reference to the Brandenburg airport which has been under construction since 2006 and was scheduled to be completed in 2012. They are now hoping to open in 2020 or 2021.

http://madridjournals.com/2017/12/14/berlins-money-guzzling-...

Yes as I was checking the spelling of Tegel I came across the Brandenburg airport information and linked to it above. It makes Terminal 5 look fast and flawless by comparison!

Terminal 5 was fast and flawless (until the day it opened and the airline computer systems fell over).

Then again, it is a giant metal shed.

Now Crossrail, THAT'S something.

Indeed: Heathrow has 75M annual passengers, crossrail will have 200M

>Now Crossrail, THAT'S something.

On time and on budget. Yet they still won't give the green light for Crossrail 2.

T5 took over 20 years after it was started in earnest.

> Wow, there is so much space around Berlin

And how do you expect to move people from that empty space into Berlin? People aren't happy to be flown 50 miles outside the city. When that happens, all those flights coming and going into that enpty space end up addin an extra couple of hours to the travel time.

To make matters worse, that empty space tends to be connected with city centers by.... Train.

Fun fact: there's a single train that serves the already completed train station under the not completed BER airport -- the tunnels were designed with the assumption of some air flow coming from the trains. Now that single empty run ensures the tunnels don't mold.

Haha that's amazing, as a kind of thank you how about this:

I overheard on the Bakerloo line two Transport for London employees talking about safetly and one pipes up and says "of course most of the inside of the Bakerloo line is covered in asbestos, they have to spray the inside of the line with glue every year and check the air quality - it can't ever be removed of course - as soon as you disturbed it you'd be completely fucked".

I try to avoid the Bakerloo line these days...

Tegal's great. Seatbeltnoff to Brandenburg gate in 30 minutes. Taxi to plane in under 5.

Manchester t3 isn't too bad - I've left a taxi with 15 minutes before take off on a couple of occasions with no problems.

"It may be true in general if there's undeveloped space within an hour or so drive of a major city center but major airport construction, at least in Western countries, usually hasn't gone smoothly."

I remember DIA (Denver) being built relatively quickly and without trouble - is my memory faulty ?

(genuinely curious)

"As expected, Mayor Wellington Webb announced today that the new Denver International Airport, already six months late and more than $1 billion over budget, will not open on May 15, missing its fourth deadline." [1]

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/03/us/denver-delays-opening-o...

> I remember DIA

The IATA code for Denver International Airport is DEN. I originally heard it by DIA and was confused many years ago, so I looked it up. Not a huge deal as most airline folks know both versions, but wanted to share the knowledge in case it was useful.

Is this the same airport that constantly made the news for its troublesome baggage system?

Edit: Yep - https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/blog/broadway_17th/2015/0...

As others have noted, it was hardly flawless though arguably just par for the course troubled except for the baggage system. And that was for an airport basically built in the middle of nowhere.

One can argue that Denvers airport was one of the most successful government infrastructure projects in the US over the last 30 years.

It's not a bad airport. Its downside is that it was popped down in empty land to the northeast of the city so it's significantly farther from downtown and farther from many of the mountain destinations to the west than the old airport was.

But obviously there was nowhere else to put it.

Everything but the baggage system.