r2rho wrote:Start talking numbers rather than emotions.
It is you who is seems to get emotional about this... I have already said that the road infrastructure is insufficient for the expected southward shift in traffic flows, and that link to main rail is currently blocked by Nimbys. The runway to terminal capacity relationship very much cares about whether traffic is O&D or connecting. Plus, BER is politically capped to 360,000 below the true capacity of 2 independent runways, and the operating hours are not set in stone, as there is a proposal on the table for a 2200 curfew.
In order to not derail the thread, I will refrain from further comments.
In what way does a runway care about if the traffic is O&D or connecting? Care to put up a reason?
Even if BER is political capped at 360,000 movements, that is around 80.000 movements more, than SFX and TLX have together today with about 280,000 movements.
So movements can still still increase by 22%. Above that an increase in average size per frame would be necessary.
Especially because Berlin is O&D orientated, growth should slow down as Berlin is not growing that fast. Today Berlin Metro area has just slightly more than 6 Million inhapitants,
I do not see the need for more than one good sized airport.
You say that the road infrastructure is insufficient for the southwards flow, prepared to give a reason? As far as I see it Berlin has by far the best motorway structure of any big German city.
Regarding the Railroad Berlin Dresden, all the trouble is to the north of the airport, where currently only the S-Bahn runs on the old tracks from Priesterweg bis Blankenfelde. Trains coming from the railway station at BER, should have no trouble going to Dresden, on a double track electrified allowing 160 km/h.
And if the BER terminal opens one day, the main problem in this theater play in Berlin, what airlines would stay in TXL? It would shrink to a regional airport with a capacity around 12 million for regional airlines, that will have a difficult battle with the new railroad systems, that do see an increase in speed over the next years. The Deutsche Bahn runs as it is high speed ICE trains from Berlin to destinations like Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Stuttgart, Frankfurt am Main and others.
The agreement to close TXL was to reduce the noise in the build up area around that airport, the movements are not capped because of this agreement and the need to run a small airport far above its capacity. Even if TXL would stay open after the BER terminal opens, we would instantly see movement caps and night closure. The airport would never have been build up there inside the city, if it would not have been for the special situation regarding West-Berlin after the second World War.
Anyway, we will see this argument every time when a new airport is build and the old should close. Around 32 million passengers is not to much for one reasonable sized airport. LGW does 43 million pax with one runway and 280,000 movements.
And we are exactly not derailing the thread, but at the heart of it, never close an airport, you could need in the next 50 years.
Even if it leads to the new main airport never getting into stride, having two airports or more, non being big enough, to offer reasonable connections.
Lot of people forget that DKR hosted the very first revenue pax Concorde landing as well.
