BERLIN // Technical problems have delayed the opening of Berlin's new airport, dealing a damaging blow to the reputation of the German capital and resulting in heavy costs to airlines such as Air Berlin, which is 29 per cent-owned by Etihad Airways.
The publicly owned management company announced the delay last week of Berlin Brandenburg Airport, also known as Willy Brandt Airport, saying that its firefighting systems would not be ready in time. It gave no new opening date, saying the airport would open "after the summer holiday period" instead of as originally scheduled for June 3.
The announcement caused an uproar and has forced airlines into hasty revisions of their plans for the airport. The cost in lost revenue has been estimated at €40 million (Dh188.8m), not including possible compensation claims from airlines.
The airlines had radically expanded their summer flight schedules to coincide with the opening of the hub and with the closure of Berlin's two old-fashioned, cramped airports, Schönefeld in the east and Tegel in the west.
Berlin Brandenburg Airport had been feted by the Berlin city government as a symbol of the modern, growing metropolis and a shining example of German engineering prowess that would allow the capital to jettison a cumbersome legacy of its Cold War past.
"This is a gigantic embarrassment for Berlin, and the whole world is laughing about it," Hartmut Mehdorn, the chief executive of Air Berlin, told the German news magazine Spiegel, in an interview published on Monday. Asked how Etihad had responded, he said: "They're shaking their heads like everyone else."
The two old airports will now have to cope with the expanded flight services for a number of months. Airlines offered 40 new flight destinations from Berlin from June 3, including a direct flight to Los Angeles. Even if airlines manage to avoid flight cancellations, delays are likely at the worst possible time - during Berlin's summer holiday and the European football championship being co-hosted by neighbouring Poland.
Berlin Brandenburg Airport will be the home base of Air Berlin, the market leader in Berlin with about 33 per cent of passenger volume. The airline operates daily flights to Abu Dhabi from the German capital.
Mr Mehdorn said Air Berlin had already sold 1.3 million tickets for flights from the airport. "All these customers now have to be contacted to tell them they must fly from Tegel," he said.
Mr Mehdorn added that it was too soon to quantify the financial damage to the airline, which announced yesterday it had narrowed operating losses to €149.3m in the first quarter, from €188m a year earlier.
The delay has presented airlines with major logistical problems. Tegel's kerosene tanks are almost empty, while those at Berlin Brandenburg are full, said Mr Mehdorn. "But we can't drive the kerosene across town now."
Etihad's stake in Air Berlin gives the Abu Dhabi airline an important foothold in the European market. The two airlines have a code-sharing agreement to operate joint flights.
Lufthansa, Germany's largest carrier, has been trying to limit the growth of Gulf rivals in the lucrative European market, lobbying the German government and its partners in the European Union to impose a "capacity limit" on passengers being carried by Gulf airlines from Europe to Asia.
Emirates has tried and failed to secure more landing slots at Berlin Brandenburg Airport, and has responded by announcing it will fly larger aircraft to German airports in a move that could allow it to boost the number of seats by up to a third.
This isn't the first delay for the opening of the airport, which had been scheduled to become operational in November. The latest postponement was caused by problems with the automatic system designed to remove smoke from the terminal in case of fire.
There have been other difficulties.
Tests with thousands of people posing as passengers revealed a shortage of check-in desks, which forced the airport to build temporary tent-like structures to accommodate new desks. And there were glitches in the baggage-handling system.
One newspaper reported last week that the airport company had sought temporary permission to manually operate evacuation doors and sprinkler systems in emergencies because the automatic controls were not yet working. The local authority refused.
Until the announcement of the delay, the airport had been lauding its own thoroughness in conducting tests to avoid the fiasco that followed the opening of Heathrow's Terminal 5 in 2008, when hundreds of flights were cancelled because the baggage-handling system collapsed.
"We have learned from the experiences of others such as Heathrow Terminal 5," Oliver Aust, a spokesman for the airport, told reporters during a tour of the vast construction site on May 4, four days before the airport announced the delay.
When it finally opens, the airport, located close to Schönefeld south-east of Berlin, will have the capacity to handle 27 million passengers a year and will be capable of an expansion to handle 45 million because it already has planning permission to build two satellite terminals.
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Stree
Producer: Maddock Films, Jio Movies
Director: Amar Kaushik
Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor, Pankaj Tripathi, Aparshakti Khurana, Abhishek Banerjee
Rating: 3.5
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
Naga
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Six pitfalls to avoid when trading company stocks
Following fashion
Investing is cyclical, buying last year's winners often means holding this year's losers.
Losing your balance
You end up with too much exposure to an individual company or sector that has taken your fancy.
Being over active
If you chop and change your portfolio too often, dealing charges will eat up your gains.
Running your losers
Investors hate admitting mistakes and hold onto bad stocks hoping they will come good.
Selling in a panic
If you sell up when the market drops, you have locked yourself out of the recovery.
Timing the market
Even the best investor in the world cannot consistently call market movements.
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
When is VAR used?
• Goals
• Penalty decisions
• Direct red-card incidents
• Mistaken identity
Everybody%20Loves%20Touda
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Other workplace saving schemes
- The UAE government announced a retirement savings plan for private and free zone sector employees in 2023.
- Dubai’s savings retirement scheme for foreign employees working in the emirate’s government and public sector came into effect in 2022.
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- In April 2021, Hayah Insurance unveiled a workplace savings plan to help UAE employees save for their retirement.
- Lunate, an Abu Dhabi-based investment manager, has launched a fund that will allow UAE private companies to offer employees investment returns on end-of-service benefits.
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
About Proto21
Date started: May 2018
Founder: Pir Arkam
Based: Dubai
Sector: Additive manufacturing (aka, 3D printing)
Staff: 18
Funding: Invested, supported and partnered by Joseph Group
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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JAPAN SQUAD
Goalkeepers: Masaaki Higashiguchi, Shuichi Gonda, Daniel Schmidt
Defenders: Yuto Nagatomo, Tomoaki Makino, Maya Yoshida, Sho Sasaki, Hiroki Sakai, Sei Muroya, Genta Miura, Takehiro Tomiyasu
Midfielders: Toshihiro Aoyama, Genki Haraguchi, Gaku Shibasaki, Wataru Endo, Junya Ito, Shoya Nakajima, Takumi Minamino, Hidemasa Morita, Ritsu Doan
Forwards: Yuya Osako, Takuma Asano, Koya Kitagawa
UAE v IRELAND
All matches start at 10am, and will be played in Abu Dhabi
1st ODI, Friday, January 8
2nd ODI, Sunday, January 10
3rd ODI, Tuesday, January 12
4th ODI, Thursday, January 14
Gully Boy
Director: Zoya Akhtar
Producer: Excel Entertainment & Tiger Baby
Cast: Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt, Kalki Koechlin, Siddhant Chaturvedi
Rating: 4/5 stars
The specs
Engine: 2-litre or 3-litre 4Motion all-wheel-drive Power: 250Nm (2-litre); 340 (3-litre) Torque: 450Nm Transmission: 8-speed automatic Starting price: From Dh212,000 On sale: Now
U19 WORLD CUP, WEST INDIES
UAE group fixtures (all in St Kitts)
- Saturday 15 January: UAE beat Canada by 49 runs
- Thursday 20 January: v England
- Saturday 22 January: v Bangladesh
UAE squad:
Alishan Sharafu (captain), Shival Bawa, Jash Giyanani, Sailles
Jaishankar, Nilansh Keswani, Aayan Khan, Punya Mehra, Ali Naseer, Ronak Panoly,
Dhruv Parashar, Vinayak Raghavan, Soorya Sathish, Aryansh Sharma, Adithya
Shetty, Kai Smith
You Were Never Really Here
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Starring: Joaquim Phoenix, Ekaterina Samsonov
Four stars
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World Series: South Africa
Women’s World Series: Australia
Gulf Men’s League: Dubai Exiles
Gulf Men’s Social: Mediclinic Barrelhouse Warriors
Gulf Vets: Jebel Ali Dragons Veterans
Gulf Women: Dubai Sports City Eagles
Gulf Under 19: British School Al Khubairat
Gulf Under 19 Girls: Dubai Exiles
UAE National Schools: Al Safa School
International Invitational: Speranza 22
International Vets: Joining Jack
The Energy Research Centre
Founded 50 years ago as a nuclear research institute, scientists at the centre believed nuclear would be the “solution for everything”.
Although they still do, they discovered in 1955 that the Netherlands had a lot of natural gas. “We still had the idea that, by 2000, it would all be nuclear,” said Harm Jeeninga, director of business and programme development at the centre.
"In the 1990s, we found out about global warming so we focused on energy savings and tackling the greenhouse gas effect.”
The energy centre’s research focuses on biomass, energy efficiency, the environment, wind and solar, as well as energy engineering and socio-economic research.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
