Which is why we also need 14 years to build a new, medium sized airport in the capital.
2 runways, 3 terminals, room for expansion for 2 more terminals. Capacity for 27 million passengers per year, going up to 50 million once expanded.
Compared to the absolute largest airports in the world (around 100 million passengers per year), yes, it's "medium". But it would be in the top 10 airports in Europe and still something like top 50 in the world, over time.
Right now it's still only France, but German politicians are talking about adopting a similar strategy.
The French model actually aims to ban flights that have a sub 4h train connection. Meaning the Eastern European nations without high speed rail would have fewer flights affected if this becomes EU policy.
It would cut a lot of flights to neighboring countries, and domestically in Germany.
A railroad investor could look at existing flights and accurately project how many passengers they can expect, since flights would be blocked the second they open their carriage doors.
Quite simply, if you're under 4h train connection you're far enough to justify a flight.
BER is pretty safe on flight numbers.
According to [1] and [2] it wouldn' even make the top 50.
As a German I feel insulted by the whole affair. It's ridiculous how incompetent and corrupt this project was managed.
1: https://gettocenter.com/airports/top-100-airports-in-world 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport
*edit: "completely false" isn't helpful here.
The stereotype of German efficiency is based on centuries old reputation, but not really representative of present day Germans.
https://www.dw.com/en/german-efficiency-the-roots-of-a-stere...
Maybe a better way to express it is:
The stereotype of German efficiency is based on centuries old reputation, but not really representative of present day Germans.
Anecdotally, from working and living in Germany, I've very much noticed that Germans are better with time management, and work shorter hours and get more done compared with my home country (Australia).
I'd be surprised to see contrary evidence, though it's certainly a possibility. But the article you linked does not appear to demonstrate much of substance in terms of present day productivity.
Stereotypes can be damaging, sure, but when discussing certain aspects of a culture they can be true and based on cultural norms. I don't think we should broadly dismiss them when used in the right context, and not in a discriminatory fashion.
- We are not lazy.
- Not everyone in the country does siesta. We just have lunch.
- There is no Sun everywhere. The North is rainier than the UK. And the sky is as much as gray, if not more.
- There is no Mediterranean climate everywhere.
- Catholicism plummeted since Franco's death.
But to respond directly to you, a stereotype typecasting an entire country to lazy is damaging and not particularly useful unless you want to insult someone.
However handwaving away trends in cultures as a stereotype can also result in missing important facets, e.g. Burn out in Japanese work culture.
Are Germans more "efficient"? Idk, let's look at some data and try to nut out whether it checks out.
If it is, would be nice to know what aspects make it so. Though it's usually not simple.
My guess is that because there are all sorts of limits on how much people can work (there are lots of holidays here) so the industries that tend to survive are those that are highly automated, and have high productivity per worker.
My feeling is that productivity-per-worker is essentially a political choice. Low skill, low automation labour is inherently unproductive, but it's also flexible and it doesn't require any strategic direction from the state. High skill high automation jobs are very productive, but they are brittle - if the market moves, all that skill and tooling becomes worthless.
The German (also Japanese) approach isn't all sunshine and rainbows, though. In Germany, for example, a pack of ten paracetamol costs like four euros. That's about a 100x markup from what paracetamol actually costs. This is because in Germany, pharmacies are protected from competition, to preserve the sector. The same is true of taxis, for example.
It's more complex than that. In Spain the "presentismo" (being in-place ,in your office, phisically in your seat) it's taken from the middle manager/boss as a religion. Thus, productiviy is halved even if we work even more than you than average.
And, yes, OFC, this was a big issue because of the Covid and remote work over the internet.
Obviously nothing is universal. But to an American visiting Spain the hours of operation there are striking! I only visited Madrid and Sevilla, but I found that restaurants and many stores were open much later than I was accustomed to (my hometown mostly shuts down around 8pm or 9pm, for example), and the fact that anything was closed around lunch was very odd! It definitely gave a fun "flavor" to my trip that was quite different from, say, Singapore.
Lately France is getting a bit more of the delay too, with shops opening at 10 and closing at 19.
Technically we should be on GMT, not GMT+1. Then we aren't that far from France.
The rule-following in a work setting is all about risk mitigation and rules tend to help with that. Similarly for following established processes. I know this is pretty annoying but at least I'd argue the status of work is transparent and the outcome reliable (even if it may take a long time because too many hypotheticals were considered). The unstructured working style of the US can certainly drive a German a bit crazy at times :)
In a social setting rules are also enforced to ensure that you don't negatively impact the personal enjoyment of others. For example, no mowing your lawn on Sundays so everyone can enjoy a quiet peaceful day. No talking loudly at your table in a restaurant so you don't bother the other diners etc
Compared to the US I find Germans and French to be fairly similar with the difference being that French are more relaxed in attitude but definitely complain even more than Germans haha
You come from a country where trains are ALWAYS VERY LATE, Germany is efficient because the trains are just a little late.
OR
You come from a country where the trains are ALWAYS ON TIME, Germany is inefficient because the trains are just a little late.
What I do think is interesting is that people think German's are efficient. Where does that come from? That's what the article is about.
Social studies have too many variables to strongly conclude exactly why, and I'm not coming out with great sources here (om phone), but it does appear that Germany works far less than Australia, US, Mexico etc.
https://www.instarem.com/blog/are-you-working-more-than-you-...
Some of it is likely wealth. But some of it is definitely cultural attitudes to work.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204770404577082...
I don't know about German but French speakers will often use circulation for traffic because it's a false friend.
Several engineering and electronics companies, led by the German giants Siemens and Bosch, struggled to retain control over the complex fire protection system that included 3,000 fire doors, 65,000 sprinklers, thousands of smoke detectors, a labyrinth of smoke evacuation ducts, and the equivalent of 55 miles of cables.
“Our part, the detection of hot air or smoke ... is functioning,” says Thilo Resenhoeft, a Bosch spokesman. “The responsibility for the dysfunction lies with somebody else.” Siemens spokesman Oliver Santen confirms that the company was originally responsible for building the “automated fire protection facility” and “the control unit for fresh-air circulation.” Testing in 2013 “showed the need for reworking part of the system,” he says. Santen declines to attribute responsibility other than to say that Siemens is “responsible for the reconstruction of the fresh-air circulation system.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-07-23/how-berli...
(The issue was not fixed until 2019. Quite disappointed, we didn't even get a Murder Horse out of it.)
Damned, I am démasqué.
It was originally scheduled to open in 2007
Good foresight by Bosch.
AFAIK we still don't know where it will be built, but there has been some progress... EDIT: They agreed upon where! But they don't know when and holding another forum due to public outcry over the chosen path... sigh.
Meanwhile, Switzerland built the connection ~40 years ago [1]
But this is a special situation, a really small gap between the Swiss highway and the Austrian/German highway, so transit had to go through the villages and clogging up everything at the bottlenecks along the border (or in Höchst, Hard, Bregenz, Lustenau, Hohenems, Feldkirch etc.)
The variant that (at the time) is supposed to be built would be 8.6km.
But hey, if this pans out, Berlin can still be an okay local airport: https://www.businessinsider.com/first-look-new-transport-hub...
In France, some years ago, they closed a plant producing automotive parts, but they kept all the employees, retrained them and started producing solar panel components. It was pretty incredible as at the same time, French companies were just laying off brutally.
However the issue isn't really that they cannot find labour - it is that they cannot find labour at a cost which makes their current business model sustainable. (Mostly an issue in labour intensive, seasonal sectors relying on unskilled labour - agriculture, aquaculture, restaurants...)
Essentially, the gripe is 'If we paid our employees a decent wage, we'd be out of business.'
Sigh.
It's funny how depriving foreigners of their livelihood is so often pitched as being for their own good.
We recruit folks from Romania promising them a decent wage, say $10 and hour, and they are typically naive folks straight out of school. Part of the contract is that they are provided with lodging, food, etc. Then they realise that after getting charged $50 for living in a tent and other "charges" they actually make like $10 a day.
The sceme basically provided a steady supply of serfs to pick fruit, and noone in britain would sign up for this.
Other cases are less egrigeous, but even in skilled work, the employee may realise the opportunity is not great, but depends on the job for visa and so decide to put up with it untill they can get permanent right to stay. Its not a terrible deal, but it wouldnt work for 'natives'
I have skin in this game because I'm married to a former migrant worker who started off over here working in restaurants and coffee shops, and have a niece who's currently here in the UK as a student. She completes her studies this summer and is taking up her 2 year work visa for graduates.
They all know that once they are inside the borders, its harder for the authorities to deport them.
Its basically the price to pay for a shot at first world lifestyle.
The last thing most of them want is a crackdown.
Deportation doesn't come into this, that's only relevant once you've broken the law or overstayed your visa.
The game is about meeting criteria for a visa route, and doing seasonal work does not help in any way. Having a UK degree enables you to get a job here easier, but thats about it.
In UK, if you are switching from a short-term to long-term visa you have to leave the country and apply for a visa again from outside the country.
Even if you are applying from inside the country, the home office does not hesitate to reject applications for the tiniest reasons. Once that happens, some people might go to court if they have the money and ground to dispute the decision, if your lot in your home country is really bad you might stay illegally, but for the vast majority neither option is worth it and they move on.
Whether you are pro or against immigration, it's unclear why unscurpulous employer should be the ones to benefit from this arrangement
Yes, that is precisely the route.
The billions (like moi) in the third world have realised that the longer they violate the immigration laws, the better their chances of having some activist argue their right to stay.
Their is no other law/regulation that I know of where the longer you violate the law, the more rights your have.
Which is exactly why the boat arrivals to Australia dried up once the processing was moved outside the jurisdiction of Australian law.
They were on to us.
I suggest you research “adverse possession”, and “easement by prescription”; if you view nation-states and their territory as analogous to persons and their real property, they are quite similar concepts to what you seem to view as unique.
I imagine that backfired since those are, you know, educated, motivated and the vast majority speak English, so at least a bunch of them figured out how to contact authorities.
I wouldn't be surprised if recent batches are from less educated segments.
For instance, with wages being as they are, many unemployed people would get less payout working full time in the agricultural sector than they would just sitting at home receiving unemployment benefits (at slightly less than 2/3 of their former wage).
The result being, of course, that whatever labour does show up tends to be less than fully motivated, adding to the employers' woes and reluctance to hire them in the first place.
I don't mind migrant labour at all; what I do mind is the idea that when the labour pool shrinks drastically, employers still try to avoid the obvious solution to attract labour - by increasing wages, if only temporarily.
These are extraordinary times (one can but hope), and extraordinary short-term measures to counter that doesn't seem unreasonable.
I think it’s just a question of leadership
The Internet says Jeff Bezos has a bit more than 10%.
Hence companies which are either not publicly traded (like Bosch) or is majority owned by someone or other (like Amazon) is much more likely to be able to make long term decisions - as they are not always geared towards getting the most impressive earnings during the current quarter to satisfy stockholders.
It probably come down to the decision of one guy at Bosch who ultimately made the decision to go ahead with this, and this sounds like it was the democratic decision of an entire population of a country - who mostly don’t care what Bosch is up to.
Congrats.