Berlin’s newest airport, Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER), is set to finally open its doors on Saturday, 31 October, almost a decade after its first scheduled opening date.
Despite nine years of delays to the opening, and a total of 14 years under construction, it appears that BER is set to finally open its doors to passengers, and in its wake, changing the nature of air traffic in Berlin.
Berlin’s Schoenefeld Airport, which shares a location with the Brandeburg site, has officially been renamed to BER Terminal 5, in anticipation of the new airport’s opening.
Schoenfeld’s IATA code has now been officially changed from SXF to BER to reflect its new role as an additional terminal servicing the new airport.
Each of the terminals are connected to the city and each other via both rail and bus connections.
The welcome addition of BER will also see the city close the small, antiquated Berlin Tegel Airport that sits in the heart of the city.
Built within just three months in 1948, Berlin Tegel was designed to handle just 2.5 million passengers per year, nowhere near the necessary facilities to serve as the main airport of Germany’s capital.
The airport saw 24 million passengers through its terminals in 2019.
In June, Tegel was officially closed to passengers for a period of two months, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent drop off in international travel demand, however at the time many believed it would never open to the public again.
While that scenario did not come to pass, Tegel will wave off its last passengers and close its doors for good on 7 November 2020, days after the opening of the new BER.
The long-overdue Berlin-Brandenburg Willy Brandt Airport is not without its own faults.
Once envisioned as a symbol of modernity, freedom and German efficiency, the new airport has largely become the butt end of a bad joke.
Nine years late and $4 billion over budget, BER has seen an unfortunate series of engineering failures, corruption scandals and lawsuits from disgruntled neighbours.
Now that the airport has taken a total of 14 years to build, critics have also argued Germany’s newest airport already feels dated.
Despite its hiccups, the airport is significantly more than suitable for serving Germany’s bustling capital.
Across its three terminals, the airport can comfortably handle over 40 million passengers per year.
A total of 17 airlines, including Ryanair and Wizz Air, will operate from the ex-Schoenfeld Terminal 5, with T5 alone capable of handling 8-10 million passengers a year
Once Terminal 1 officially opens on Saturday, airlines will slowly relocate to BER in stages, with first arrivals expected to include easyJet and Lufthansa on 31 October.
The first departures from the new terminal will take place the following day.
Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines will also be among the first airlines to relocate from Tegel to BER T1.
Then, from 4 November, Eurowings and Vueling will cease departures from Tegel, to move to Terminal 1.
Ryanair, SunExpress and Sundair will relocate to Terminal 5, while Belavia, Georgian Airways, Egyptair and Norwegian will move to T1.
In the third and final relocation wave, the following airlines will also begin operating at BER Terminal 1: Aegean Airlines, Aer Lingus, airBaltic, Air France, Air Malta, Air Serbia, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Brussels Airlines, Danish Air Transport, Finnair, Iberia Express, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, Luxair, SAS, Swiss and TAP Portugal.
T1 will also house around 120 shops, restaurants and service units, spanning more than 20,000 square metres.
