The great thing about our summer tour – and it’s something I notice over and over again – is not simply that we make the people of the region more familiar with the new BBI Airport from which they will take off to destinations all over the world from 2011 onwards. No, the great thing is that we also get to know Brandenburg better, too. Take last Saturday, for instance, when we were in Frankfurt an der Oder. It was just gone 9.30 in the morning and Brandenburg’s Economics Minister, Ulrich Junghanns, Lord Mayor Martin Patzel and Berlin Airports CEO Dr Rainer Schwarz had just opened our exhibition at the BBI Infobus and pointed out that the Frankfurt region was part of the BBI’s immediate catchment area and that the prospects for the entire German-Polish border area were excellent, when there was a ripple went through the crowd in Oberer Brunnenplatz square. “What’s going on?” one passer-by asked. “Oderturm Run” came the terse reply. I took a closer look at the office block behind us. Run up that? It ’s 89 metres high and has two dozen storeys!

I was about to ask whether the building had no lifts when the start signal was given for this somewhat unusual sports event. Then about 60 entrants ran a short distance around the tower to start with, before running up the 24 floors and the 511 connecting stairs. Johannes Gabbert was the fastest, completing the run in 2 minutes and 32 seconds and only just falling short of the record set by a Polish runner in 2004.

I was antstonished. Hardly had the athletes been presented with their trophies, however, than I felt emboldened and decided to have my own private Oderturm run. After about ten minutes, I was already at the top – gasping for breath, my heart racing. Now that I’m slowly getting my breath back, I can at last say, “Respect, dear Oderturm runners!”

print version berlin-airport.de (Copyright Berliner Flughäfen)