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> The management company now says the overall cost of the project will be 6bn euros (£5.3bn) - if it opens as planned next year

6 billion euros is $6.83B. That actually sounds like a bargain for a brand new airport with 2 runways.

For comparison, Heathrow's 3rd runway is estimated to cost £18.6B.[1] That's $23.6B for just 1 runway.

LAX renovation has a projected cost of $14B [2]. That's $14B just to "improve the design, safety and efficiency of the airport." No new runway will be built.

Hong Kong Airport 3rd runway is expected to cost HK$141.5B [3]. That's $18B for 1 runway.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansion_of_Heathrow_Airport

[2] https://www.gobankingrates.com/making-money/business/lax-air...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_International_Airpor...

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Your Heathrow numbers are off. Latest cost is £14b, and the price includes re-routing one of the UK’s busiest roads into a tunnel, building a new terminal, and purchasing 7,000 of the UK’s most expensive homes, while not disrupting air traffic at an airport which handles take offs and landings every 45 seconds from two runways.

Given that, “for just 1 runway” feels unfair

It’s not wrong, though.

You added some really valuable context but it doesn’t detract from BER being relatively inexpensive compared to other airport projects.

> it doesn’t detract from BER being relatively inexpensive compared to other airport projects

But it does incorrectly describe BER as a "brand new airport", where the reality is: "The northern runway of BER is the southern runway of the old Schönefeld Airport and has been in use since the 1960s." (Wikipedia) and also it's a single terminal. At this point, it's then very similar to the Heathrow project in what's being delivered, except for the added context I gave.

Off topic, but it's an interesting read how they originally acquired the land for Heathrow.

"Harold Balfour ... deliberately deceived the government committee into believing a requisition was necessary so that Heathrow could be used as a [military base] in support of the war with Japan. In reality, Balfour wrote that he always intended the site to be used for civil aviation, and used a wartime emergency requisition order to avoid a lengthy and costly public inquiry."

British government in requisitioning other people's land shocker.

The problem is that one precondition for the opening of the new airport BER, is that the old airports Tegel and Schönefeld shall be closed. But BER is probably not large enough to handle the traffic of those both..

Mind that it isn't a "complete" airport. It's on the area of Berlin-Schönefeld airport. Thus less need to acquire new land. Which I expect to be a notable part for a new runway in London's vicinity (of course a new runway also requires new fire fighting station and new tower etc. to guarantee service, such a project is a bit more than just the runway)

How much was land acquisition and noise proofing of residential buildings for those? The new airport in Berlin is not in a particularly densely populated area...

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