The new capital city airport has opened, now its predecessor is going offline: Berlin-Tegel is closing. The last machines take off at the weekend. Frequent flyers mourn, but tens of thousands of Berliners are now facing quieter times.
After 60 years, the last scheduled aircraft will take off from Berlin's Tegel Airport on Saturday. The city center airport is going offline in favor of the new capital city airport. Today is the last regular operating day and the last moving day to BER. Among other things, Lufthansa said goodbye in the evening. The airport will be officially closed on Sunday with the abbreviation TXL.
Air traffic in the German capital will then be concentrated at the Schönefeld site. The new Willy Brandt Airport was opened there on Saturday after 14 years of construction on October 31. In addition to the overloaded Tegel Airport, it also replaces Tempelhof Airport, which was closed in 2008.
The last time the airlines take off from Tegel, the fire brigade says goodbye to the respective machines with water fountains. Due to the high demand, Lufthansa is once again using a large aircraft, an Airbus 350-900 with around 300 seats. Air France will have its official last flight on Sunday.
Hundreds of guests are expected on the visitor terrace this Saturday. All tickets for this have been awarded. The terrace is no longer open on Sunday. The rest of the airport is then also not open to the public, which is justified by the corona pandemic.
Tegel Airport has no rail connection, but because of its location close to the center and the short distances to the terminal, it has many friends in the city. In a referendum in 2017, a majority voted to continue operating the airport in parallel with BER. However, the vote has no legal force.
From the airport to the business park
The state is planning a research and industrial park in Tegel. With the closure of Tegel, many Berliners will be relieved of aircraft noise. The Senate puts the number of those affected at around 300,000. For 20,000 of them, it has so far been as loud as in an industrial area. Up until the outbreak of the corona pandemic, there had been more flights every year; in 2019 there were an average of around 530 per day. About 65 there are still this Saturday, including several sightseeing flights.
The residents were relieved even before the airport closed. Because of the pandemic, there hasn't been much going on for months, numerous flights have been canceled: In October, passenger numbers in Tegel and Schönefeld were 82 percent below the previous year's figure. It looks no different at other German airports. The federal government wants to persuade states and municipalities to come up with a joint rescue package for airports.
With the closure of Tegel, the practice of empty flights over Berlin also ends. Last year, according to the operator, 391 aircraft flew without passengers from Tegel to Schönefeld and 385 in the opposite direction. Many of them were private planes that are stationed in Schönefeld, but invited their customers to Tegel. There are also line machines that had to go to the hangars for maintenance in Schönefeld.
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