The new airport will be located near Schönefeld. The designers plan to extend the existing runways and also lay new ones. Construction, worth 1.7 billion euros, is to begin in 2006 and be completed by the end of 2010.
It is expected that the airport's initial capacity will be 20 million passengers a year, and later may increase to 30. The Minister-President of the state of Brandenburg, Matthias Platzeck, called the future construction the region's largest infrastructure project.
Brandenburg's Transport Minister Frank Schimanski announced that the project for the new international airport Berlin-Brandenburg has been completed, but a number of conditions need to be met before construction begins. First of all, permissible noise levels must be observed in areas adjacent to the future runways. From 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., only "quiet" aircraft are allowed to take off and land; sound-absorbing walls are planned, special mixtures for the floor are to be used, and 20,000 new trees will be planted to replace the felled ones.
As always, such a project has found opponents, mainly residents of the capital. "Over the last 30 years, large airports are no longer built in densely populated areas," says Ferdi Braidbach, who heads an initiative group. Opponents of the new airport intend to file a complaint with the Federal Administrative Court and hold a mass protest rally in the city center.
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