opinion
Column: This is the boomer speaking
From airports and other problems: Why Germany can no longer take off
Long queues formed at the Berlin airport at the weekend
© Christoph Soeder / DPA
The capital’s airport is congested for days, flights are missed, the queues are endless. What is actually the deeper reason why nothing works at BER? Our author asks himself.
From Frank Schmiechen
Flying has become a nightmare. The Berlin airport turned into hell for vacationers at the weekend. Queues stretched to the front of the building. Nobody organized the chaos. Instead, desperate passengers were snapped at. Flights were missed. Children cried. Vacationers who finally wanted to go into the sun after all the dark Corona months had to turn back and sadly and angrily retreat.
Before my return flight from Nice, the flight captain explained via the microphone that you had to wait an hour on the plane at the airport in France. The reason is the Berlin airport, on which only one runway is operated. Because of the Corona regulations. Aha. The reaction: a low murmur. We are used to this madness by now.
Flying today can end in organized deprivation of liberty. Nobody is responsible. As a traveler you are on your own and have no chance of escaping. People are crammed between unoccupied counters, insane regulations, in the aircraft ready to take off between nervous tourists and crying children. Nobody can know whether it will be the same on the next flight.
At the airport: “Where do all the people want to go?”
Scoffers claim that these scenarios are created on purpose to keep people from flying. Because of the climate. You already know. That is nonsense, of course. But I won’t forget the saying of a security officer at the crowded Berlin airport: “Where do all the people want to go? Should they stay at home?” There is no better way to describe the zeitgeist in Germany. Lie down instead of getting up. No matter instead of energy. Lockdown instead of getting started. Ambition and excellence have got a bad image. Anyone have any money? Take away! Anyone have an idea? We have never done this before! Someone asks a question about Corona? Lateral thinker! Somebody start something new? Stop! Anyone want to fly? Stayed here!
In any case, only the hard-core plunge into the uncertain risk of flying. The bourgeois package holiday has turned into a risky adventure, in which it is questionable whether you will even reach your destination. Actually, we would like to see New York. Manhattan is calling. But we just looked at a hotel in the Bavarian Forest. It should be very nice there.