Merkel Joins Battle Over Tempelhof Airport

With construction under way on a new €2bn (£1.35bn) Berlin airport, capable of handling up to 25 million passengers a year, the future of the historic Tempelhof site is at the centre of a fierce new debate.

The Berlin-Brandenburg International airport (BBI) is being built on the rundown site of the former communist showpiece terminal at Schönefeld - 45 minutes east of the centre of the German capital - and is due to open in 2011.

But Berliners, including the chancellor, Angela Merkel, are campaigning for a fresh lease of life for Tempelhof - where US and British planes landed essential supplies and pilots threw out sweets during the 1948-49 airlift - despite plans to close it by October next year.

This giant airport is just 10 minutes by train from the city centre but handles only half a million passengers a year - on little more than 40 flights a day - compared with the six million people passing through it in the 1970s. It was overtaken by Tegel, west Berlin's hub airport, which is also due to close when BBI opens.

Tempelhof, the world's first commercial airport, was built in 1923 and extended by the Nazis to become the world's biggest building with a terminal more than 1,000 metres long. But planners do not know what to do with its huge, empty spaces. Ideas range from a conference centre to an entertainment complex.

Hartmut Mehdorn, head of Deutsche Bahn, the state-owned German railways, has offered to take over the runway and use it for business jets. But Mr Mehdorn, who presided over the construction of Europe's biggest railway station, Berlin's Hauptbahnhof, and is embroiled in a political battle over privatisation plans, has no interest in the main buildings.

Schönefeld, meanwhile, remains controversial even though it could create 40,000 jobs and will be linked to Germany's high-speed rail network through a €600m underground station. It is subject to strict noise limits and night-flight restrictions.

The BBI, which could be extended to handle 40 million passengers a year, is seen as a hub for major carriers such as Lufthansa, using bigger planes paying higher take-off and landing fees. EasyJet, the low-cost airline already using Schönefeld, has complained that its own passengers will be forced to walk to and from the terminal's perimeters.