Routes and Airports Channel

VIE terminal project halted as costs soar over budget

By Kurt Hofmann
ATW's Airports Today, September 2009, p.2

Vienna International Airport continues to face challenges as construction costs for its new Terminal SkyLink have skyrocketed at the same time that passenger traffic is falling. Airport officials are going back to the drawing board to review existing contracts in an effort to cut costs on the 450-m.-long facility. Construction work was halted on June 30.

VIE CEO Herbert Kaufmann told Austrian media that all construction contracts will have to be reworked by Sept. 30 in hopes of reducing costs. Construction is planned to resume early next year. SkyLink should be completed in 2011 and be fully operational by 2012, increasing capacity to 30 million passengers annually.

Originally scheduled for four years of construction and an investment of €400 million, the 150,000-sq.-m. SkyLink was supposed to open in June 2008. Costs have more than doubled to an estimated €830 million and some sources say the final figure could reach €1 billion. As recently as February officials pegged the cost at €657 million, but the airport was forced to revise this upward just a few months later.

Planning changes and reconstruction of an already completed infrastructure led to the massive increase. Peter Kleemann, a spokesperson for VIE, tells ATW's Airports Today that prior to February the project manager reported that the budget was under control. An investigation is underway to try to find an explanation for the runaway costs and determine culpability.

In the first six months of 2009, VIE passenger traffic was down 12.7% compared to the year-ago period. The airport is expecting a full-year decline of 9% to around 18 million.

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