
How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment - adventured
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-07-23/how-berlin-s-futuristic-airport-became-a-6-billion-embarrassment
======
germanier
They seem to completely miss the story about Imtech's involvement that broke
this week which sheds some lights on this catastrophe and is a tale of
corruption: [http://www.zeit.de/2015/29/imtech-flughafen-berlin-ber-
verzo...](http://www.zeit.de/2015/29/imtech-flughafen-berlin-ber-
verzoegerung/komplettansicht)

Unfortunately I'm unable to find an English-language article on that at all.
There is only this Imtech response:
[http://imtech.com/EN/corporate/Newsroom/Highlights/Imtech-
re...](http://imtech.com/EN/corporate/Newsroom/Highlights/Imtech-response-to-
media-attention-on-16-July-2015-about-legacy-issues.html)

~~~
giarc
Can you provide an English summary?

~~~
germanier
I try but don't hold me accountable for any inaccuracies.

At the moment three public prosecutors independently investigate that
companies practices which is rare in Germany: 1) A gigantic adventure park in
Poland which was never supposed to be built 2) A cartel which allowed them to
build two power plants 3) Falsification of balance sheets.

Imtech is responsible for parts of the airport's construction – including the
two parts which created most problems: the smoke extractor and the cabling. As
the airport was close to be finished, opening date just days away, Imtech send
fraudulent invoices they knew nobody would double-check. This is a practice
that seems really common with such projects.

Similar things happened a few years earlier: When the planning agency went
bankrupt and it was known that due to regulatory changes the plans needed to
be fixed they nonetheless went on to built the (now obsolete) parts – knowing
they will be the company that will be called to fix it again. Additionally the
work was done sloppily: Among the quoted examples were control boxes build too
close together that you couldn't open their doors.

What was really important for the company was that all invoices should be paid
by the end of 2012 to include them in that years balance sheet – while
delaying paying their workers until January. As time was running out they
resorted to a bribe: In December 2012 an employee of Imtech gave an employee
of the Berlin airport an envelope with 150 000 € at the side of the highway.
Airport employees spend overtime during the christmas holidays so that all
payments of 65 Mio. € could be processed.

The article then goes on the describe the involvement of top management which
indicate that this is done systematically. They also describe the two other
projects from above. They also suggest that these projects look like a Ponzi
scheme: A project's loss is paid by doing even crazier projects.

~~~
protomyth
"Imtech send fraudulent invoices they knew nobody would double-check. This is
a practice that seems really common with such projects."

Yeah, this is a bit too typical and happens in the USA also. If you ever have
to deal with building something, check every invoice as if it was from Snidely
Whiplash.

~~~
germanier
The article specially mentions a one-page invoice with items like "overhead
costs" and "disturbances while building" amounting to millions – billed at a
time where they still had 5000 other invoices to check.

~~~
protomyth
That would be the time to try to slip something through. Also, its not like
the accounting department knowns what the invoices mean. This is why a lot of
places require work orders / purchase orders to match each invoice. No WO or
PO #, no pay invoice.

------
therobot24
> "Professor, let me understand this," Loge said. "You are talking about
> having 800 people wearing orange vests, sitting on camping stools, holding
> thermoses filled with coffee, and shouting into their cell phones, 'Open the
> fire door'?" Loge refused the airport an operating license. Schwarz stood up
> and walked out without another word.

Easily the best part of the article.

~~~
troymc
I got a good chuckle out of the sentence:

"Then they turned to the fire prevention system. Smoke now channels upward
through chimneys, in accordance with the laws of physics."

~~~
detaro
Yeah, some politician got some "duh, stupid engineers" points out of that
sentence. Completely ignoring the fact that the original design also pulled
smoke down and was considered to be fine. Since these systems are active and
suck the smoke out up or down doesn't matter all that much.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
From the third paragraph: "Smoke evacuation canals designed to suck out smoke
and replace it with fresh air failed to do either. In an actual fire, the
inspectors determined, the main smoke vent might well implode." Assuming the
inspectors were correct, the original design, at least as implemented, didn't
work.

While the "in accordance with the laws of physics" may be overly catty, a bit
of searching around suggests that smoke evacuation dampers are generally
placed on the ceiling, and it's not unreasonable to think that's because,
well, smoke rises, isn't it?

~~~
detaro
AFAIK the smoke was pulled in at the ceiling of the floors. And then sent
downwards and vented out somewhere on the side instead of on top of the
building.

The original design was never tested, because the building as originally
designed never existed.

 _Each addition ordered up by Schwarz required shifting passenger flows
through the terminal. That meant rebuilding walls, exits, emergency lights,
ventilation systems, windows, elevators, and staircases. At one point, in
2009, outside controllers urged Schwarz and his engineering chief to shut down
construction for half a year to give the architects and contractors time to
coordinate efforts._

That never happened, so there never was a complete design for the changed
building, and the fire system wasn't properly replanned for the new situation.
Which lead to issues like the collapsing pipes: They fitted stronger fans, but
no-one realized that the pipes can't hold the higher pressure difference.

~~~
spathi_fwiffo
IDKSAS, but wouldn't a system like this (electrically powered venting) be
prone to failure in an actual fire? If power fails with side/down venting, the
smoke would have no where to go.

~~~
hn9780470248775
It does sound like a situation where "excessive cleverness" is being applied
to an engineering problem, where a simple/robust/passive/failsafe solution may
be available.

~~~
x0054
Having owned several German sports cars, I must say that "excessive
cleverness" just might be a German trademark. When compared to the Corvette,
the only American sports car I had, excessive, and largely unnecessary
cleverness is very much prevalent in german designs.

------
bluecalm
There is a joke in my country (Poland) about every little town needing:

-an airport

-an aquapark

-a huge sport stadion

All of them as a way to transfer some state/town money to political cronies.
The sad part is that some of those make sense as an infrastructure improvement
(most doesn't though, at least here) so it's easier to sell the idea to
people. The way the business is done is to just pay 30%-50% more than it
should cost and pocket the difference.

~~~
raverbashing
That's for the Amateurs, Professionals do a whole World Cup

~~~
ubernostrum
And to get into the hall of fame, you do an Olympics.

~~~
hkmurakami
Look no further than the $2.5 billion debacle that is the new Tokyo Olympic
stadium.

A rather lavish expenditure for a country that is deep in debt.

~~~
_delirium
Another example among many: Greece hosting the 2004 Olympics turned out not to
be a great financial decision.

------
jandrese
This is exactly what you expect to happen when you're redesigning the building
in the middle of construction. If the project manager can't say no then it's
pretty much guaranteed to be a disaster.

On the plus side, it seems like they've finally found someone competent to fix
the mess and move the project forward.

~~~
JimboOmega
What I don't quite get is that the problem keeping things from being fixed
seems to be entirely related to the fire system.

Meanwhile all the other issues like heavy equipment breaking tiles... none of
that seems to be slowing it from opening.

So how did all the other systems wind up being more or less ready?

~~~
detaro
The fire system was the thing that forced them to admit the delays and has
gotten the biggest publicity, because failing the fire certification forbids
them from doing anything except construction work. I don't think anyone had
(or even has now) a clue if the other things actually were completely ready.
Stuff like power lines in the wrong cable channels makes one suspect they
weren't...

------
schoen
When I last visited Berlin, I heard a joke about the airport's problems that I
thought was very funny:

"Niemand hat die Absicht, einen Flughafen zu errichten!"

('Nobody has the intention to build an airport!')

Context:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall#Construction_begin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall#Construction_begins.2C_1961)

~~~
mrich
The other popular joke, after all these years and billions spent: "Let's just
move Berlin to a functioning airport"

~~~
hn9780470248775
My favorite Berlin airport joke:

"Did you hear about the new grammar reform? It includes a new tense, Futur
III, to allow us to speak of the completion of Berlin/Brandenburg airport."

[http://www.der-postillon.com/2012/08/neue-zeitform-futur-
iii...](http://www.der-postillon.com/2012/08/neue-zeitform-futur-iii-
eingefuhrt-um.html)

------
nsns
But is it only BER? As mentioned int the article - what about Stuttgart 21
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21))
etc.?

It is possible that these sites exist as new financial "loopholes",
transferring tax-money from the government to private contractors without much
oversight.

~~~
CurtHagenlocher
The complexity of that project is extremely high. My cousin is a civil
engineer in Stuttgart, and he showed me a cross-sectional diagram of the
affected area and the number of considerations seemed intractably high to me.

But more generally, these kinds of megaprojects go over budget in nearly every
part of the world -- especially when tunneling is involved. Here in the United
States, two examples are Boston's "Big Dig" and Seattle's viaduct replacement.

~~~
blakeyrat
In the interests of being pedantic, and local pride: Seattle's viaduct
replacement isn't over budget-- _yet_.

It's extremely likely to go over budget, but don't count the chickens before
they've hatched. The last budget review came to the conclusion that it's still
possible to finish the project as budgeted and scheduled.

[http://www.king5.com/story/news/local/seattle/2015/04/23/ber...](http://www.king5.com/story/news/local/seattle/2015/04/23/bertha-
project-expert-review-report/26222949/)

~~~
icelancer
>The last budget review came to the conclusion that it's still possible to
finish the project as budgeted and scheduled.

They should open a betting market on these types of lines. I'd love to see the
fair odds. I'd take out a second mortgage if I could bet "This project will go
over budget" if it was even odds.

------
stffndtz
I am a german living in Berlin - and let me tell you, I feel deeply ashamed.
Not because I am german, but because I have the impression that a lot of
people involved, especially our once-so-admired former mayor Klaus Wowereit,
are obsessed with money, and got caught in a swamp of corruption and were
misleading the public.

A year ago or so, it turned out that the folks responsible for all the mess
(none of the board of course) we not to be found, because they were supporting
a system were a subcontractor could hire another subcontractor and so forth,
making it impossible for anyone to get a grip on what is going on. And that is
not what I would expect from a billion dollar project run by some of the most
trusted politicians and executives in our country.

I flew home from Budapest a couple of weeks ago, and I was surprised to see
that we were using the actual airstrip of BER. The flight was supposed to go
to SXF (Berlin Schönefeld), but instead we landed on the new airstrip, driving
by the not-yet-finished new airport. Can anyone tell me why?

There's more to it though - starting with corruption [1] and going all the way
to REBULDING the whole thing [2].

I'll stop here now - but I hope that there will be a lot more of critique
towards those who made this a completely embarassing desaster.

[sorry guys, links are in german. I'll try to find english ones] [1]
[http://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/berlin-schoenefeld-
korrupt...](http://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/berlin-schoenefeld-korruption-
am-flughafen-ber-die-akte-imtech/11464662.html) [2]
[http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/acht-milliarden-
euro-b...](http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/acht-milliarden-euro-
baukosten-fuer-flughafen-ber-erwartet-12873893.html)

~~~
germanier
> I was surprised to see that we were using the actual airstrip of BER. The
> flight was supposed to go to SXF (Berlin Schönefeld), but instead we landed
> on the new airstrip, driving by the not-yet-finished new airport. Can anyone
> tell me why?

They repurposed the south airstrip of SXF as the north airstrip of BER. As the
north airstrip of SXF was dismantled for a highway this is the only remaining
airstrip at SXF. For BER they built another additional one.

Here's a map: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Karte-
_F...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Karte-
_Flughafen_Berlin-Schönefeld_SXF.png)

~~~
stffndtz
I wasn't aware of that - but did they increase the number of planes starting
and landing on SXF? It wasn't until a couple of months ago since they started
taxi'ing around the building, or am I wrong?

~~~
CrLf
I visited Berlin in 2012, and I remember taxiing near the BER terminal.

------
sillygeese
If you're in a position to hand out $5B of other people's money, do you think
some people _might_ want to bribe you to get it?

What if you can only hand out $1M? Will someone still want to bribe you? -Of
course, but he'll be a "smaller player" then.

All public spending involves _some_ sort of "corruption" [1] because it's
always other people's money being spent, and there's always someone in charge
of spending it.

If you could pay $10 to get $100, wouldn't you do it? A bribe is an
_investment_ , and the tax money received in exchange is the ROI.

[1] I put "corruption" in quotes because it's just the system working as
intended. If the system were actually corrupted, it would somehow start
working for the masses' benefit instead.

Think about it. How do _you_ benefit from someone else spending your money
_for you_? Your money serves a means towards an end for whoever spends it,
meaning he will be trying to benefit from spending it.

~~~
D_Alex
> If you could pay $10 to get $100, wouldn't you do it?

Certainly not, if the $10 is a bribe. Would you?

> A bribe is an investment...

No, it is a criminal offence, in most places. And for good reason. Corruption
does horrible things to the economy.

~~~
sillygeese
> _Certainly not, if the $10 is a bribe. Would you?_

Probably not, even if only because I'm not the kind of person who'd even get
into a position to bribe someone for personal gain.

But there's this thing called "psychopaths", and _they do_ seek out bribing
opportunities and they don't have any problem whatsoever with paying bribes
too.

> _No, it is a criminal offence, in most places. And for good reason._

Sure, but the people _taking_ the bribes are part of the organization that's
supposed to punish people for taking bribes (i.e. "criminal offenses"). See a
problem there?

------
CurtHagenlocher
"At the very moment Merkel and her allies are hectoring the Greeks about their
profligacy, the airport’s cost, borne by taxpayers, has tripled to €5.4
billion."

So, which country does Germany want to borrow money from in order to cover the
wasteful spending?

~~~
c_lebesgue
German EUR bonds have the second lowest yields globally, with Switzerland
being the leader. Also their ratings are higher than f. eg. the US bonds. So
the German government does not really have to worry about borrowing money.

~~~
coob
Japan's are lower than Germany's.

------
Jean-Philipe
As somebody from Berlin, I'm always happy when my hometown is on HN! Makes me
feel proud.

~~~
_ak
Yep, the proud feeling about Berlin's grandiose track record when it comes to
corruption and incompetence in major construction projects.

~~~
TillE
Aside from the airport, I don't think Berlin is worse than any other major
city. There are huge construction debacles for various reasons everywhere.

~~~
_ak
No, there's been a concentration of construction-related scandals with
corruption, bribery, etc. in Berlin over the last 40 to 50 years.

------
ghshephard
I realize that higher standards of fire and other safety measures make these
systems more complicated, but you would think that with all the technology we
have today for planning, engineering, communication, documentation, modeling
and simulation - that these types of fiascos would become rarer and rarer.

I wonder if anyone has looked at large scale projects like these over the last
100 years and determined what implications (if any) technology has had in
reducing these issues.

~~~
wlesieutre
We have a lot of powerful software for building design these days, Autodesk's
Revit suite being the big one. But as in software development, better tools
just ends up meaning that clients demand things faster and cheaper, rather
than better.

There are some classes of problems that it definitely helps solve, like
keeping the structural engineer and HVAC engineer from design conflicts where
a beam and a duct go through each other. But everything needs to be done
yesterday, so I'm not surprised that problems that can't be automatically
identified are able to slip through.

> “The people responsible for technical oversight were saying, ‘We cannot do
> this within this amount of time,’ and Schwarz would answer, ‘I don’t care,’
> ” he says.

Pretty much sums it up.

EDIT: There's no excuse for the exposed high voltage wiring alongside the low
voltage alarm systems though, that sounds like a contractor screwed up. I
don't know the German electrical code, but generally in the US anything over
60V is classified as "class 1" wiring and it goes in a conduit. Typically this
is a grounded metal tube so that you can't accidentally pound a nail through
it, and if anything shorts to the conduit there's a safe path to ground until
overcurrent protection trips.

And if for some reason you have lower voltage "class 2" wiring running in the
same conduit, those wires (and whatever else they split off to) are now
considered class 1, even if they're only low current 24V signal wires or
similar. They can no longer leave conduit and go anywhere else, on the off
chance that it shorts to the line voltage wires it's sharing conduit with.

~~~
anigbrowl
_But as in software development, better tools just ends up meaning that
clients demand things faster and cheaper, rather than better._

Exact same thing in the arts field - not all clients of course, and I can't
think of a recent equivalent to a fiasco of this scale, but the general trend
is that clients feel when the cost of technology goes down so should other
costs.

~~~
wlesieutre
Swear to god, I've had inquiries come in that sat dead for _years_ and
suddenly it's "Please revise. I need the updated version tomorrow."

Since email is 1000 times faster than shipping drawings back and forth, that
means _everything_ I do takes 1000th the time that it used to. Apparently.

------
philfrasty
One of the current running gags in Germany :) Simply make a reference to that
airport and something that will never work and you are good to go.

Edit: one of my favorite articles on that topic (German) [http://www.der-
postillon.com/2012/08/neue-zeitform-futur-iii...](http://www.der-
postillon.com/2012/08/neue-zeitform-futur-iii-eingefuhrt-um.html)

------
coldcode
Building an airport always is. Often it takes more money and a few decades to
appreciate it. D/FW airport was a nightmare when it was built but it's pretty
nice today. Denver's airport had tons of issues as well.

Then again this seems on a much higher level of disaster, but should be
familiar to anyone building large government software systems.

~~~
hvs
Denver still has the issue that it's a 20 mile drive from downtown out of some
misguided belief that the city was just going to instantly grow out to it.

~~~
koenigdavidmj
When you build an airport near the city, it becomes impossible to expand. San
Diego is a good example of this, a single-runway airport that's surrounded by
the bay, I-5, the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, and a residential neighborhood.
It's running near capacity and impossible to expand. There's simply nowhere to
go.

~~~
peterfirefly
They can expand into the water, adding an extra East-West strip.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Artificial_island_air...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Artificial_island_airports)

~~~
koenigdavidmj
Ordinarily yes, but the bay might not be wide enough to fill in part of it,
especially when you're trying to fit aircraft carriers through it.

------
smhg
This reminds me of the immer funny David Zuelke explaining the difference
between "North Germany" and "South Germany" to a group of non-Germans. It was
at an after-phpDay drink a few years ago.

According to him, you can find the famous German Gründlichkeit in The South,
with The North being the exact opposite. He used the Berlin airport as an
example: "it was an endless failure". This was in 2011 or 2012. I wonder how
strong opinionated South-Germans like him look at this today.

I think for non-Germans the difference in Gründlichkeit is probably not
noticeable :)

~~~
leroy_masochist
Thank you -- I don't speak German, and have just added Gründlichkeit to the
list of German words I love. It joins Fingerspitzengefühl, Fremdschämen,
Weltschmertz, Sitzpinkler, and Fernweh.

I really need to learn your language.

~~~
orkoden
Gemütlichkeit is another word to learn.

If you come to Germany you can take part in any conversations just knowing
genau and ach so.

Genau - Exactly, I understand, I agree. Used to express agreement. Germans
like to agree. Use freely in any conversation at any time. Ach so - really, I
see. Can be used to express agreement, astonishment, realization,
understanding, questioning depending on intonation and stress. Na - hello, how
are you, hey. Can be used at any time to start or avoid a conversation.

------
qwtel
Bent Flyvbjerg studies these "megaprojects" and offers various explanations
why a) they are being conducted in the first place despite the fact that b)
they are usually any combination of over budget, behind schedule or below
expectations in terms of their benefits.

Here is an interview with him on EconTalk about the subject:
[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/05/bent_flyvbjerg.html](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/05/bent_flyvbjerg.html)

------
codeshaman
Bribe the inspectors and open up on time - then somehow patch the problem
later. Everyone wins. That's what they would do in a lot of places in the
world.

If a German airport, with a huge budget, has 150.000 defects of which 85k are
serious, then what about airports in other countries, which don't make use of
the world-famous german high quality standards ?

What about airports in countries were things are solved with a bribe, a
handshake and an evil smile ?

~~~
slowmotiony
World-famous german high quality standards were a thing fifty years ago, from
my experience this is often not the case any more.

~~~
k__
No, at least not in consumer products.

But I heard, big machines and weaponry are still export hits

------
mschuster91
All I do is remembering EDDM, Munich's airport, which was finished on the day
it was supposed to - and even better, they moved the entire technology of the
old airport in a single night
([https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flughafen_M%C3%BCnchen#Inbetri...](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flughafen_M%C3%BCnchen#Inbetriebnahme)).

------
venomsnake
I wonder what kind of austerity will be imposed on the poor Berliners for
wasting so much money /s

~~~
Xylakant
It's a bit more complicated since the airport is a joint venture between
Berlin, Brandenburg and the Federal Government which all hold roughly a third
of the shares. And while it's an embarrassing waste of money the german
constitution stipulates in Art. 109 Abs. 3 Satz 1 GG that starting 2016 the
federal government cannot exceed 0.35% of the GDP in new debts and and
starting 2020 the state governments are not allowed to take on new debts at
all. So we'll have the austerity you're asking for soon enough.

~~~
venomsnake
Well ... enjoy the show :( Too bad that this stupidity persists so much.

------
frik
I saw a ZDF TV docu about Berlin Airport last year. Very low-ceilinged halls
and rooms means the cannot integrate gas purge and fire safety pipes and
equipment. It seems so serious that an international experts in the docu
suggested to rebuild parts of the airport buildings. And it seems weird that
the airport will be already too small for the passenger traffic in 2017. Given
that it should replace the former largest airport in the world Berlin
Tempelhof and two other airports near Berlin. Several politicans have already
been replaced because of scandals and multi-year delays. Shop space was
already leased in ~2011 and employees already waited to begin their new work.
It seems really a lot has gone wrong with BER. It would probably be cheaper to
blow up the already too small buildings and build completely new ones or
reactivate Tempelhof.

------
jkldotio
Also the guy who designed the smoke extractor system wasn't actually an
engineer. Stern broke the story last year.[1]

My German is pretty basic, but "Geschasster BER-Planer war nur technischer
Zeichner ... Doch di Mauro ist kein Ingenieur, wie angenommen wurde" amounts
to "Ousted BER-Planner was only a technical draftsman ... but di Mauro is not
an engineer, as was thought".

[1] [German] [http://www.stern.de/wirtschaft/news/stern-exklusiv-
geschasst...](http://www.stern.de/wirtschaft/news/stern-exklusiv-geschasster-
ber-planer-war-nur-technischer-zeichner-3184142.html)

------
netcan
Why do airports always need to be so ambitious? Usually the simple airports
are best anyway.

~~~
Kliment
The worst thing about BER is that it's designed to replace Tegel, which is
easily the most sensibly built major airport in Germany. Space-efficient,
cheap to operate, high-throughput, built very quickly with limited resources
to solve a specific problem.

~~~
cmarschner
Tegel has the charm of an old bus station, but efficient it is. My record was
Berlin Schönhauser Allee to Munich East in 3 hours and 20 minutes. It can only
get worse from there. The commute to BER alone will be at least 30-40 minutes
longer.

~~~
Kliment
Who gives a shit about "charm". Last year I had a connection that due to
delays on the incoming flight left me with 8 minutes from the time we got
shuttled into the terminal to the time my outgoing flight gate closed, and it
wasn't even in the same terminal. I ran over to the other terminal, went
through the insecurity controls, and made the flight, with several minutes of
time to spare. I know of no other airport where something like that would be
possible.

------
lazyant
More embarrassing is to build an airport with no demand and have it abandoned
several years afterwards without any flights.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castellón–Costa_Azahar_Airport](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castellón–Costa_Azahar_Airport)

------
Kenji
I don't understand why the state funds airports. If people want airports,
there is a demand, and that demand is either big enough to fund an airport and
is satisfied, or it isn't because people don't want to spend that kind of
money. Seems to me like something the state shouldn't be involved in.

~~~
cmarschner
Airports are shared infrastructure, just like roads. As such they are serving
a common purpose, and don't have to make money by themselves (rather
indirectly through enabling business). That's exactly where the government
should be involved in. E.g. It makes more sense to have a single airport
rather than several competing ones, airports shouldn't go bancrupt and be
closed, and building them might require changing laws or evicting/relocating
1000s of people. These are all in the sphere of public responsibility.

~~~
Kenji
There, I turned your statement around to show you how flawed your reasoning
is:

The internet is a shared infrastructure, just like roads. As such it is
serving a common purpose, and doesn't have to make money by itself (rather
indirectly through enabling business). That's exactly where the government
should be involved in. E.g. It makes more sense to have a single provider
rather than several competing ones, providers shouldn't go bancrupt and be
closed, and establishing them might require changing laws or
evicting/relocating 1000s of people. These are all in the sphere of public
responsibility.

Absolutely there should be competition, it's the main driver behind efficiency
and quality!

~~~
justthistime_
I think you see for yourself where your example falls apart.

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nomailing
Good to hear that the pirate party member Martin Delius is the head of the
parliamentary committee leading the investigation. I'm wondering if we would
be that informed if a member of another political party would be in charge,
because one of the main programmatic points of the pirate party is
transparency.

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ChrisArchitect
some discussion about this a few months ago
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9658581](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9658581)

and this: [http://istderberschonfertig.de/](http://istderberschonfertig.de/)

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Tomte
My favorite feature of BER is that they have to run ghost trains through the
subway tunnel underneath the airport.

Because if nothing moves inside, no air circulates and they get a mold
problem.

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anishkothari
I didn't read the article (too long and it's late) but something caught my
eye.

If you keep scrolling down, you hit the next article and the URL changes. How
did they do that? Kudos

~~~
manarth
It's a HTML5/JS thing - 'pushState'. If you search for that, you'll find
plenty of resources explaining it in better detail than I can.

~~~
anishkothari
Great, thank you!

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x0rg
This is what happens with many software projects following crazy customers and
waterfall approaches. Clearly we never speak about 6 billion, but hey, shit
happens...

~~~
philippnagel
Can you develop a big infrastructure project using agile methodologies?

~~~
x0rg
I don't know anything about building an airport, but I guess you could try
something. We tried to compare software to buildings for many years, maybe in
a case like this the learnings from failing software projects can be somehow
useful.

~~~
kzhahou
I'm not sure there's any evidence that "agile," in any of its many forms, had
a high success rate for very complex projects.

~~~
germanier
For what it's worth, after the original monolithic plan for the Berlin airport
needed to be changed there was no other grand plan but rather small teams each
independently and locally applying changes on-the-go. Let's say as we see it
didn't go too well.

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a3n
Given our various economic and political systems, is it just not possible to
build something this large and complex, and have it all ready to go on the
same day (whether on time or late)?

I wonder if it would be better to build and contract these things in stages,
in blocks of usefulness.

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unreal37
I love that there's 150,000 defects, 80,000 of them considered serious.

~~~
bsimpson
I don't know how you even count that high, unless it's through extrapolation:
"this nail was pounded incorrectly and there's 10 nails in a board and 1000
boards in this area, so 10,000 defects."

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agumonkey
Ridiculing Spain stillborn airports.

<... and in the end Germany wins>

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wahsd
What people have to understand, for context, is that this project is kind of a
pinnacle of failure and corruption that was born and fostered in the post-
unification "reconstruction" of the formerly East German territories.

