Berlin airport PR man sacked for being too honest

We all want to bitch and moan about our jobs sometimes (apart from at ShortList, where everything is consistently amazing), but if there's one man who really should have understood the value of toeing the party line, it's a public relations officer.

Presumably caving to the pressure and agony of constantly lying, the spokesman for Berlin's new airport has been fired for finally telling it like it is, describing the project as a "shit show", saying that previous managers "messed up".

The airport is billions of euros over budget - with the cost rising from a projected €1.7bn to at least €6.5bn. It's also several years behind schedule, due to open in 2012, resulting in it being described as Germany's most embarrassing planning disaster.

In an interview with PR industry magazine prmagazin, Daniel Abbou was asked if the airport might open in 2017: "No one, unless he is addicted to drugs, will give you any fixed guarantees for this airport... The old managers of the project messed up too much for that to be the case, too many billions of euros have been wasted. What we can do is create a sense of transparency. Up until now, official statements always said that the project was going well. That's bullshit. Take responsibility when something has been a shit show."

When his comments came to light, he was immediately fired, but Sebastian Czaja from the Free Democratic party told Bild: “Finally someone has said what everyone’s been thinking all along.”

Anyone else think this guy should be put in charge of the project?

(Image: BBC)

[via Guardian]