Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg GmbH, commonly abbreviated FBB, is a German
airport
An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...
operator. It operates
Berlin Brandenburg Airport
Berlin Brandenburg Airport ''Willy Brandt'' (german: Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg "Willy Brandt", , ) is an international airport in Schönefeld, just south of the Germany, German capital Berlin in the state of Brandenburg. Named after the f ...
(BER) and previously operated
Tegel
Tegel () is a locality (''Ortsteil'') in the Berlin borough of Reinickendorf on the shore of Lake Tegel. The Tegel locality, the second largest in area (after Köpenick) of the 96 Berlin districts, also includes the neighbourhood of ''Saatwinkel'' ...
and
Schönefeld airport
Schönefeld (meaning ''beautiful field'') is a suburban municipality in the Dahme-Spreewald district, Brandenburg, Germany. It borders the southeastern districts of Berlin. The municipal area encompasses the old Berlin Schönefeld Airport (SXF) a ...
s prior to their 2020 closures.
FBB is owned by the German states of
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
and
Brandenburg
Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a states of Germany, state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an ar ...
(37 percent each), with the remaining shares being held by the Federal Republic of Germany (represented by the ministries of
Transport
Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, an ...
and
Finance
Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...
German reunification
German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...
, ''Berlin Brandenburg Flughafen HoldingGmbH (BBF)'' was founded on 2 May 1991.Der Tagesspiegel: ''Die Akte Schönefeld - 1989 bis 1996''. Published online on 2 December 2011 (in German). /ref> In a privatisation attempt,
CEO
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
of FBB, was dismissed from his post on 16 January 2013. He was succeeded by Hartmut Mehdorn, the previous CEO of Air Berlin, who took the office on 8 March 2013. Klaus Wowereit, the Berlin mayor who had served as chairman of the FBB supervisory board since 2001, also stepped down from his post and was subsequently replaced by
Matthias Platzeck
Matthias Platzeck (born 29 December 1953) is a German politician. He was Minister President of Brandenburg from 2002 to 2013 and party chairman of the SPD from November 2005 to April 2006.
On 29 July 2013 Platzeck announced his resignation fro ...
, the Minister-President of Brandenburg.
During his tenure Hartmut Mehdorn appointed Jochen Grossmann as technical head, who was subsequently found guilty of corruption and fraud in June 2014 after demanding payment from potential contractors. Mehdorn announced a new opening date of "end of 2016" on 12 December 2014, only to quit as CEO three days later on 15 December and was replaced by Karsten Mühlenfeld in March 2015. Mühlenfeld himself was later forced to terminate his contract early after the BER project was hit by delay after delay. One of his last acts as CEO was to announce a new opening date of 2018 for a project that began in 2006 and was initially supposed to open in 2011. He was replaced in March 2017 by Berlin's Secretary for Housing and Construction Engelbert Lütke Daldrup.
After numerous further delays, BER opened for commercial airline traffic on 31 October 2020.
COVID-19
In January 2021, it was reported that FBB had lost 90% of its traffic-related income. The company is expecting a shortfall of 83 million passengers until 2025. Pessimists suspect lower passenger numbers until 2027. In any case, the board has decided it needs an additional 660 million euros to keep operating in 2021. A board member commented that "it can't work if the shareholders do not assume a part of the debt".