Germany: Chaos-plagued Berlin airport won't open before 2020

German authorities said Friday that Berlin's new international airport would not open before 2020, 8 years behind schedule for a project that has become an enduring political scandal and national laughing stock. Planners said after a committee meeting they were confident they now had a viable roadmap to address the technical defects that have plagued in particular the ultramodern new main terminal of the BER airport. "With today's supervisory board meeting we are starting the last phase of the completion of the terminal and thus of the opening of BER," airport chief Engelbert Luetke Daldrup said. Daldrup called the new opening date target of Oct 2020 "credible and reliable" but acknowledged that the US$7.1b price tag would, as widely expected, continue to rise. <br/>