Berlin airport chief resigns

BER Chief Executive Hartmut Mehdorn said Monday that he would step down once the company board had found a successor for his post, but on July 30, 2015 at the latest.

The surprise resignation followed a similarly unexpected announcement by the board on Friday that Berlin's new airport was scheduled to go into operation in the second half of 2017.

Mehdorn attributed his resignation to "speculations about his person" that had exceeded "tolerable levels."

"I personally regret my resignation very much because it corresponds neither with my understanding of duty, nor with my personal ambitions," he said in a statement.

Mehdorn took over as CEO of Berlin's new Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport (also known by its airport code BER) in 2013, after the opening of the airport had been delayed for the fourth time. Originally, the project was to be finished in 2011, but it was held up by serious planning mistakes and faulty construction, including a fire protection system that didn't work.

Unbridgeable differences

In his statement, Mehdorn didn't elaborate on the problems that had caused his resignation. But observers have repeatedly spoken of major differences with the board over the timing of the airport's opening and its size.

On Friday, as the board confirmed its new planned opening date, Mehdorn said construction of the airport was now fully "under control."

The board, however, reportedly dropped Mehdorn's plan to enlarge the airport, which, in his opinion, was too small to handle Berlin's rising air traffic. According to project plans, the airport has a capacity of 27 million passengers per year, a figure that has already been surpassed this year as 28 million passengers are expected to take off or land from Berlin's two current airports.

uhe/sgb (AFP, dpa)