Berlin-Brandenburg Airport
Again chaos at BER – fire alarm sounds
Passengers at a security checkpoint at BER Airport. Photo: Christophe Gateau / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Almost flown off – but then through the security check again: Many passengers at Berlin’s Willy Brandt Airport were slowed down on Friday. Not for the first time.
At the capital’s airport BER, a fire alarm caused chaos on the busy Friday. Many passengers had to go through security a second time. Your departure was delayed by several hours in some cases.
At noon, a fire detector in a public toilet had triggered an alarm. The federal police then cleared the entire security area. The passengers were asked to remain calm. According to a BER spokeswoman, thousands of passengers were affected.
Controls closed for two hours
After the alarm, the security checkpoints remained closed for a good two hours. During the evacuation, checked passengers who were waiting for departure met with arriving passengers from outside the Schengen area who had not yet been checked. The federal police therefore searched the security area for suspicious objects. Why the fire detector gave an alarm was initially open. Those responsible did not rule out that someone had smoked in the toilet.
The security controls were able to reopen shortly before 3 p.m. In the early evening, the processing of the machines – including aircraft that had been waiting – was still in full swing, according to the airport company. Some connections have been deleted.
The control lanes at Berlin-Brandenburg Airport (BER) were already heavily used, as the federal police had announced before the alarm. A total of 55,000 passengers were expected at BER on Friday, half of them departing. According to the airport, the arrivals were back to normal in the afternoon.
It wasn’t until the autumn break that there had been chaos. Passengers had to wait more than two hours to check in. Some missed their machines. Those involved gave different reasons for this. Lufthansa spoke of a lack of handling capacity in the terminal. The airport company blamed the problems on staff shortages at the counters. The airport recently made headlines with germs in drinking water.