ILA is to remain in Berlin from 2012 after organisers opted for a planned purpose-built site next to the city's new airport over a move to Leipzig.
The decision - made by German trade association BDLI only last week and announced to exhibitors yesterday - was necessary because the current showground at Schönefeld airport, ILA's home since 1991, is being demolished to make way for Berlin Brandenburg International, scheduled to open next year.
The BDLI confirmed the move after assurances from Messe Berlin - which co-hosts ILA - that it could build the new venue in the village of Felchow, next to the new airport, in less than two years.
Bigger than the current 250,000m2 (2.7 million ft2) site, it will comprise permanent and temporary structures and, although it will be available for other exhibitions, its main function will be to stage ILA. A direct taxiway will connect the display area to the new airport.
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Messe Berlin is confident it can hit the deadline comfortably. It says it hosted the first ILA in Berlin in 1992 with only 12 months' notice following the decision to shift the show from Hanover, its home for 30 years, to what was then the new German capital.
"The new site will be bigger because we are already at capacity here and we expect growth," it says. "It was important that we stayed here in Berlin."
However, speaking before the decision to reject Leipzig, the BDLI admitted that building a new venue from scratch in such a short time would be "a challenge". Leipzig had been hoping that the facilities at its existing airport would tempt BDLI to switch cities.
ILA has changed venue several times since its inception in Frankfurt in 1909 (it claims the title of oldest air show over Paris by three months). It moved to Berlin in 1912 and following a gap after the rise of Hitler was relaunched in Hanover after the Second World War.
Source: Flight Daily News
