Long waiting times, missed flights, complaining passengers - where is the learning effect at the capital's airport?
It's Thursday evening, a normal May evening, no holidays in Berlin, nothing special, when my phone lights up. "You won't believe it, I've been standing at the security checkpoint for ages and they're still closing checkpoints here." The "end of the song" followed less than 20 minutes later, "boarding is over, I can't keep up".
14 hours later, Friday morning, 9 a.m., a normal Friday in May. The terminal is packed, as are the check-in counters, but the question I have to ask myself is what all the people are queuing for across Terminal 1.
A quick look around the corner, shock. They are the fellow passengers who are waiting in line before the boarding card check before security check 4. There is a seamless transition to "Priority" control point 3. A quick glance at the monitors reveals that all control points are working at maximum capacity.
I look at the homepage of the airport BER - there it is easy to do. The waiting time is only given in 3 categories:
- about <10 minutes
- about 10-20 minutes
- approx. > 20 minutes
All control points are of course >20 minutes. I have a suitcase with me and actually have to queue for the check-in. For a brief moment I think about walking back to the parking garage and flying without a suitcase.
But the shock persists, WHAT'S GOING ON??? - A reminder AGAIN: It's a normal Friday morning IN MAY, no public holiday, no bridging day, no vacation - nothing. The headlines of the past year immediately come to mind.
Frustration arises: Have you really learned nothing or only so little from it? Does that repeat itself Whole thing from the previous year again? A few days before the loss of the "BER" was announced to the public, weeks and months before the call for help to dizzying heights of more public money.
WHERE are the employees who redistribute passengers? To Terminal 2? In order not to let the scenes of the previous year come up again?! An echoing announcement from the tape brings absolutely nothing! Passengers from all over the world need contact persons of flesh and blood. There are still almost exactly 8 weeks until the summer holidays, 8 weeks that the airport operators MUST use NOW to prevent renewed chaos WITH ANNOUNCEMENT!
Summer hasn't even started yet, but the coming weeks should be hot in the executive suites of "BER", the credo should be "all hands on deck" under all circumstances, this Friday was already a foretaste. Waiting times at security are normal, as is the general post-pandemic problem of finding enough staff after many people have fled aviation, but when there is a sense of letting things flow freely, something is seriously wrong. Or as the saying goes in a legendary German song, "I think it's starting again"...
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