It comes round every year and every year it’s wonderful. The world is once again Berlin’s guest and people from all over the globe have been flocking to the TV tower on the ICC exhibition site. What I’m talking about here is the tourism trade fair ITB with its more than 11,000 stands, where exhibitors from 187 countries present their travel destinations.

I’m right there in the thick of things, naturally, welcoming visitors to the Berlin Airports stand. But now and again I also manage to slip away for a moment. After all, there’s nothing better than strolling around the colourful pavilions of the ITB – passing Thailand, Japan and Korea, dropping in on Namibia and paying a visit to Peru on my way back to Berlin. I could simply take off into the world of dreams. If only I could fly away to somewhere sunny right this minute! Away from the bad-weather zone to a place where the word “crisis” is not on everyone’s lips.

The crisis was also the subject of the breakfast reception Berlin Airports held today, at which Messrs Wowereit and Platzeck and Dr Schwarz all gave speeches. They were unanimous on one point, namely that while we would not emerge entirely unscathed from the crisis, Berlin Airports is nonetheless better placed than the other German airports. I wouldn’t want to brag but – we did have 1.4 million passengers more last year than in the year before, which means we had the strongest growth of any German airport. Regardless of the crisis, though, we should not lose sight of our most important project, as Dr Schwarz pointed out: the building of the BBI airport. We are continuing to make swift progress on site and the date for the grand opening of the airport is set for November 2011.

Wersja drukowana berlin-airport.de (Copyright Berliner Flughäfen)