22/5/23, 10:58 The Long-delayed Berlin Brandenburg Airport Finally Opens Amid the Pandemic

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AIRLINES + AIRPORTS

After Nearly a Decade of Delays, Berlin’s

New Airport Finally Opens
The long-delayed Berlin Brandenburg Airport opened on Oct. 31.

By Emily Manthei | Published on November 3, 2020

PHOTO: BERLIN BRANDENBURG AIRPORT

It’s been Germany’s most melodramatic will-they-or-won’t-they story for

over two decades. And now, in the middle of a pandemic, with climate
activists from Extinction Rebellion protesting at the building’s entrance, the

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22/5/23, 10:58 The Long-delayed Berlin Brandenburg Airport Finally Opens Amid the Pandemic

long-delayed, scandal-ridden Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) has finally

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landed its first planes.

On Oct. 31 at 2 p.m., flights EasyJet 3110 and Lufthansa 2020 landed on

the north runway, welcoming the first two passengers — the CEOs of both
airlines — into BER, a tidy terminal made of soft wooden boxes inside an
airy, four-story glass frame. Spectators watched from what will be a public
viewing deck of the runways above the terminal.

“Ninety-four years ago, we were founded in Berlin, and since then, we were
meant to land here,” said Lufthansa’s CEO, Carsten Spohr.

The new BER sits on the border between Berlin and its neighboring federal
state, Brandenburg. With an initial capacity of 27 million passengers per
year, the airport’s opening finally gives eastern Germany a worthy
international hub to compete with Frankfurt and Munich in the country’s
west.

RELATED: New Airports Are Promising a Better Future Once Travel Bounces Back

PHOTO: BERLIN BRANDENBURG AIRPORT

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22/5/23, 10:58 The Long-delayed Berlin Brandenburg Airport Finally Opens Amid the Pandemic

“BER has annoyed us, disappointed us, moved us. But now, it can delight
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us, too,” said Germany’s Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure,
Andreas Scheuer, in a moment of candor at the opening ceremony. The
airport’s initial opening date, November 2011, was postponed so many
times that the airport became a running joke.

Berlin’s reputation for unsustainable relationships with handsome but

flawed airports predates BER by almost a century, though.

The city’s first airport, Tempelhof, became operational in 1927, but was
reconceived less than 10 years later by the Nazi era’s most celebrated
architect, Albert Speer. The new terminal at Tempelhof was meant to be the
world’s largest, but despite a decade of construction, World War II put a
stop on many of Speer’s plans.

In 1948, when the Soviets blockaded West Berlin in an effort to make the
allies cede their sectors, planes filled with food and supplies for West
Berliners landed at Tempelhof day and night, in three-minute intervals, but it
wasn’t enough.

The main runway at Tegel Airport, in the French sector, was commissioned
and constructed in just 90 days to assist the airlift. After the blockade
ended, Tegel got its own commercial terminal, designed by the young
architect Meinhard von Gerkan. His unique hexagonal design was beloved

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22/5/23, 10:58 The Long-delayed Berlin Brandenburg Airport Finally Opens Amid the Pandemic

by passengers, because the gates were all just minutes from the entrance.
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But it was always designed to be small — a portal from a capitalist island
behind the Iron Curtain to western Europe.

After reunification, everything changed. The early 2000s saw airport traffic
soar as the German government returned to Berlin and tourism exploded.
In the former East Berlin, the Soviet-sector airport, Schönefeld (the ugly yet
reliable suitor in this drama), was also outgrowing its limited capacity.
Tempelhof closed in 2008, while both Tegel and Schönefeld constructed
makeshift sheds as additional terminals while they waited for the
construction of BER, which began in 2006.

BER was also designed by von Gerkan, engineered for simplicity, flow, and
quick access to gates through four quadrants. But his magic, which made
Tegel a jewel, was about to expire. The architect wanted the new airport to
have a streamlined design with an entirely flat, sweeping roof — no
chimneys. Instead, he imagined a series of extraction fans to drive smoke
down to underground pipes. Five years and many design changes later, a
fire safety test proved this plan disastrous, and the roof was reconceived.

The opening was delayed seven months, initially. Then, there were more
construction challenges, corruption and bribery allegations, and the
resignation of Berlin’s mayor. By the mid-2010s, when Michael Müller
became the mayor of Berlin, there was no opening date set.

Berlin, in a country seen as a leader in engineering and efficiency, was still

subject to two tiny, out-of-date airports running millions of passengers over
their capacity while scrambling to complete a new airport whose
technology was constantly being outdated as it sat unused.

On Saturday, Oct. 31, that all came to an end.

“In the past years, there were days that were despairing. But today, this
airport is one great tribute to reunification,” Müller said at the ceremony.

The small soft opening caused by the pandemic allows operational

capacity, which was expected at 55,000 passengers a day according to an
airport employee, to slowly scale up as limited air traffic returns to the
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22/5/23, 10:58 The Long-delayed Berlin Brandenburg Airport Finally Opens Amid the Pandemic

skies. (In recent months, actual passenger traffic has topped out at about
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26,000 per day.) Throughout the week, as nearby Schönefeld is rebranded
to BER Terminal 5 and flights begin to transfer from Tegel, the new BER will
work its way into the transition.

“We are living in the first day of a success story, but this airport will have
new challenges. Our state has worked hard to make aviation more climate-
neutral, and we see this as a challenge to the airport and the airlines,”
Brandenburg’s Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke said, addressing the
Extinction Rebellion protesters.

Meanwhile, Tegel will finally be closed, despite Berliners’ passionate

attachment to it. The final departure is scheduled for Nov. 8, closing down
the last chapter of Berlin’s 20th-century airport saga.

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