The opening of Berlin's new airport has been delayed for a fourth time, until at least 2014, triggering a protest storm Monday and raising pressure on the German capital's mayor.
In the planning since 1996, the airport meant to become Germany's gateway to the world has been plagued by cost overruns, delays and technical glitches, crucially a faulty fire safety system.
When it eventually opens, Willy-Brandt Airport will replace Berlin's three smaller air hubs - Tegel, Schoenefeld and the now closed Tempelhof, made famous by the Cold War Berlin airlift.
But its tortured development, overseen by the city's centre-left Social Democrat mayor, Klaus Wowereit, is now widely regarded as a comedy of errors and an embarrassment for the capital city.
Costs have shot up from an original budget of 2.4 billion euros (3.1 billion dollars) to about 4.3 billion euros now and could rise, according to public broadcaster ARD, to 5 billion euros.
The prestige object, located in neighbouring Brandenburg state south-east of the city centre, is also controversial because aircraft noise will affect hundreds of thousands of people.
Experts charge that the number of check-in counters and aircraft parking slots is too small to handle future demand.
News of the latest delay, from October 27 to an unspecified date, came not from the government but from top-selling tabloid Bild. Several sources confirmed the delay in interviews with dpa.
"Wowereit has done damage to the city," said Berlin's Green Party parliamentary leader Ramona Pop in a radio interview. "Right now I don't see that Klaus Wowereit can go on as mayor."
She pointed to the fact Wowereit, the head of the supervisory board, had until recently denied there would be another delay. Pop said the Greens planned a no-confidence vote against him.
Bild reported, citing internal documents, that Berlin Airport Company managers had informed the supervisory board and construction partners as early as December 18 of the latest delay.
The Christian Democrats in Brandenburg also called for the scalps of state premier Matthias Platzeck, Wowereit's deputy on the board, and airport project chief Rainer Schwarz, over the debacle.
The conservative party's chairman in Berlin, Frank Henkel, sharply criticized the "policy of disinformation" and declared himself both "stunned" and "mad as hell" about the latest postponement.
Berlin-Brandenburg airport, codenamed BER, was originally set to open in October 2011. That target date was changed to June 2012, then to March 2013, then to October 2013.
The delays have become a national embarrassment in a country that prides itself on its civil engineering prowess.
The airport is just one of a series of German showcase projects to be hit by delays and cost overruns, also including Stuttgart's new underground rail hub and Hamburg's new concert hall.
Most Berlin flights now operate from the former West Berlin's ageing Tegel airport near the city centre. Former East Berlin's Schoenefeld, near the new hub, mostly hosts low-cost flights.
The vast, deserted new airport site boasts a gleaming glass-walled terminal, two runways and a rail link to the city. Empty trains now run there four times a day, but only to help ventilate the station.