
| Berlin Tegel Airport Flughafen Berlin-Tegel Berlin Airport in Tegel |
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|---|---|---|---|
| IATA: TXL ICAO: EDDT | |||
| Summary | |||
| Airport type | Public | ||
| Operator | Berlin Airports | ||
| Serves | Berlin, Germany | ||
| Location | Tegel | ||
| Hub for | |||
| Elevation AMSL | 122 ft / 37 m | ||
| Coordinates | 52°3335N 013°1716E / 52.55972°N 13.28778°ECoordinates: 52°3335N 013°1716E / 52.55972°N 13.28778°E | ||
| Website | |||
| Runways | |||
| Direction | Length | Surface | |
| m | ft | ||
| 08L/26R | 3,023 | 9,918 | Asphalt |
| 08R/26L | 2,428 | 7,966 | Asphalt |
| Statistics (2008) | |||
| Passengers | 14,500,000 | ||
| Source: German AIP at EUROCONTROL[1] | |||
Berlin Tegel "Otto Lilienthal" Airport (IATA: TXL, ICAO: EDDT) is the main international airport in Berlin, Germany. It lies in Tegel, a section of the northern borough of Reinickendorf, 8 km (5.0 mi) north of the city of Berlin. Tegel Airport is notable for its hexagonal terminal building around an open square, which makes for walking distances as short as 30 m (98 ft) from the aircraft to the terminal exit. In 2008, the airport served over 14,530,000 passengers, making it by far the biggest airport serving Berlin. The airport is scheduled to close in 2012, six months after the completion of the new Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport that is slated to handle all commercial flights to and from Berlin. [1]
Tegel Airport serves as hub for Air Berlin, and as focus city for Lufthansa. Additionally, it is the most important base for the charter business of Germania. The two dominant operators, Air Berlin and Lufthansa, each handle around 30% of the scheduled commercial flights.
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Tegel Airport was built during the Berlin Airlift in 1948 on a 1930s rocket research site at Tegel in what used to be West Berlin's French sector in the days prior to Germany's reunification. At that time, it boasted the longest runway in Europe (2,428 metres).[2]
West Berlin's special legal status during the Cold War era (8 May 1945 2 October 1990) meant that all air traffic to and from the Western half of Germany's divided former and present capital was restricted to the airlines of the three Western victorious powers of World War II, ie only airlines headquartered in the United States, the United Kingdom and France. In addition, all flightdeck crew, (ie pilots, flight engineers and navigators), flying aircraft into and out of West Berlin through the Allied air corridors were required to hold American, British or French passports.[3]
Air France was the first airline to commence regular commercial operations at Tegel on 2 January 1960. The airline decided to transfer its operations from Tempelhof Airport to Tegel because the former airport's runways were too short to handle first generation jet aircraft such as the Aérospatiale Caravelle, Boeing 707, de Havilland Comet and Douglas DC-8 without payload or range restrictions.[4][5]
Pan Am became the second airline to commence year-round, scheduled operations at Tegel Airport when it launched a thrice-weekly service from New York JFK in May 1964.[6][7] This service was operated with Boeing 707s or Douglas DC-8s, which could not operate from Tempelhofthe airline's West Berlin base at the timewith a viable payload.[7] The service routed either through Glasgow Prestwick in Scotland or Shannon, Ireland. It ceased in October 1971.[8]
From 1966 until 1968, UK independent Lloyd International was contracted by Neckermann und Reisen, the tour operator of West German mail-order concern Neckermann, to launch a series of inclusive tour (IT) flights from Tegel. These flights were operated with Bristol Britannia turboprops.[9] They served principal European holiday resorts in the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands.[10]
From April 1968, all non-scheduled services, ie primarily the rapidly growing number of IT holiday flights that several UK independent airlines as well as a number of US supplemental carriers had mainly operated from Tempelhof since the early 1960s under contract to West Berlin's leading package tour operators, were concentrated at Tegel. This traffic redistribution between West Berlin's two commercial airports was intended to alleviate Tempelhof's increasing congestion and to make better use of Tegel, which was underutilised at the time.[11] (During that period, the Allied charter carriers had begun replacing their obsolete propliners with contemporary turboprop and jet aircraft types, which suffered payload and range restrictions on Tempelhof's short runways. The absence of such restrictions at Tegel gave airlines greater operational flexibility regarding aircraft types and destinations. This was the reason charter carriers favoured Tegel despite being less popular than Tempelhof because of its greater distance from West Berlin's city centre and poor public transport links.[12][5]) A new passenger handling facility exclusively dedicated to charter airline passengers was opened to accommodate the additional traffic.[11] Both this facility (a wooden shed) and the original terminal used by Air France's and Pan Am's scheduled passengers (a pre-fabricated shed) were located at the airport's north side.[11] Following the transfer of all charter traffic to Tegel, Channel Airways, Dan-Air Services, Laker Airways and Modern Air Transport began stationing several of their jets at the airport.[11] Channel Airways' collapse in early 1972 provided the impetus for Dan-Air to take over the failed carrier's charter contracts and to expand its own operations at Tegel.[13] (Dan-Air, one of Britain's foremost wholly privately owned, independent airlines during the 1970s and '80s, eventually became the third-biggest operator at Tegel Airport, ahead of Air France. In addition to firmly establishing itself as the airport's and West Berlin's leading charter airline, it also operated scheduled services linking Tegel with Amsterdam Schiphol, Saarbrücken and London Gatwick, its main operating base. By the time that airline was taken over by British Airways at the end of October 1992, it had served Tegel Airport for a quarter of a century.[14][15]) Modern Air's departure in October 1974 coincided with Aeroamerica's arrival.[16][17] That carrier's departure following the end of the 1979 summer season was followed by Air Berlin USA's arrival.[18] Laker Airways' decision to replace its Tegel-based BAC One-Eleven fleet with one of its newly acquired Airbus A300 B4 widebodies from the 1981 summer season resulted in Monarch Airlines taking over that airline's long-standing charter contract with Flug-Union Berlin, one of West Berlin's leading contemporary tour operators.[19][20][21] (Several years later, Monarch Airlines provided the aircraft as well as the flightdeck crew and maintenance support for Euroberlin France, a Tegel-based scheduled airline headquartered in Paris, France. Euroberlin was jointly owned by Air France and Lufthansa, with the former holding a 51% majority stake, thereby making it a French legal entity and enabling it to conduct commercial airline operations in West Berlin.[22][5])
Other airlines operating regular services to/from Tegel Airport during the Cold War era included:
In addition to the aforementioned airlines, a host of othersmainly British independents and US supplementalswere frequent visitors to Berlin Tegel, especially during the early 1970s. These included Britannia Airways, British Airtours, British United, Caledonian, Caledonian/BUA / British Caledonian, Capitol International Airways, Overseas National Airways, Saturn Airways, Trans International Airlines, Transamerica Airlines and World Airways. Furthermore, during the early '70s, both Pan Am and TWA used to operate regular Advanced Booking Charter (ABC) flights from Tegel to the USA as well. During that period, the airport scene at Berlin Tegel could be very colourful, with Air France Caravelles, the UK independents' BAC One-Elevens, de Havilland Comets and Hawker Siddeley Tridents as well as the US supplementals' Boeing 707s, Convair Coronados and Douglas DC-8s congregating on its ramp. During 1974 alone, 22 airlines were operating at Tegel Airport.[31]
During the 1960s construction of a new, hexagonally shaped terminal complex on the airport's south side began. This coincided with the lengthening of the runways to permit fully-laden widebodied aircraft to take off and land without restricting their range and construction of a motorway and access road linking the new terminal to the city centre.[32][33] It became operational on 1 November 1974. (A British Airways Lockheed L-1011 Tristar 1[17][34], a Laker Airways McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10[35], a Pan Am Boeing 747-100[36] and an Air France Airbus A300 B2[37] were among the widebodied aircraft specially flown in for a pre-inauguration of the new terminal on 23 October 1974.[31][38][39]) Dan-Air operated the first commercial flight to arrive at the airport's new terminal at 06.00 am local time with a BAC One-Eleven that was in-bound from Tenerife.[31][39]
Following Pan Am's and British Airways' move from Tempelhof to Tegel on 1 September 1975, the latter replaced Tempelhof as the main airport of West Berlin.[40]
Following Germany's reunification on 3 October 1990, all access restrictions to the former West Berlin airports were lifted.[41]
Lufthansa resumed flights to Berlin on 28 October 1990, initially operating twelve daily pairs of flights on a limited number of routes, including Tegel-Cologne, Tegel-Frankfurt and Tegel-London Gatwick.[42] To facilitate the German flag carrier's resumption of services from/to Berlin, it purchased Pan Am's Internal German Services (IGS) division[43] for US$150m. This included Pan Am's internal German traffic rights as well as its gates and slots at Tegel. This agreement, under which Lufthansa contracted up to seven of Pan Am's Tegel-based Boeing 727-200 Advs operated by that airline's flightdeck and cabin crews to ply its scheduled routes to Munich, Nuremberg and Stuttgart until mid-1991, also facilitated Pan Am's orderly exit from the internal German air transport market after 40 years' uninterrupted service as EU legislation prevented it from participating in the EU/EEA's internal air transport market as a non-EU/EEA headquartered carrier.[41][42] However, Pan Am continued operating its daily non-stop Tegel-JFK service until Delta Air Lines assumed most of Pan Am's transatlantic scheduled services during 1991. Pan Am Express, which was not included in Pan Am's IGS sale to Lufthansa, continued operating all of its domestic and international regional scheduled routes from Tegel as an independent legal entity until its acquisition by TWA in 1991. Following TWA's takeover of Pan Am Express, the former Pan Am Express Berlin operations were closed. Until December 1994, Lufthansa also contracted Euroberlin to operate some of its internal German flights from its new Tegel base, making use of that airline's gates and slots at Tegel as well.
As a US-registered airline Air Berlin found itself in the same situation as Pan Am following German reunification. It chose to reconstitute itself as a German company.
These were the days when liberalisation of the EU/EEA internal air transport market was still in progress and when domestic traffic rights were reserved for each member country's own airlines. The German government therefore insisted that all non-German EU/EEA carriers either withdraw their internal German scheduled services from Berlin or transfer them to majority German-owned subsidiaries by the end of 1992.[44] It also wanted the bulk of all charter flights from Berlin to be operated by German airlines. These measures were squarely aimed at UK carriers with a major presence in the internal German air transport market from Berlin as well as the city's charter market, specifically British Airways and Dan-Air. Lufthansa and other German airlines reportedly lobbied their government to curtail BA's and Dan-Air's activities in Berlin, arguing that German airlines enjoyed no equivalent rights in the UK.[44] This resulted in BA taking a 49% stake in Friedrichshafen-based German regional airline Delta Air, renaming it Deutsche BA and transferring its internal German traffic rights to the new airline.[45] BA also replaced the commuter aircraft Deutsche BA had inherited from Delta Air with new Boeing 737-300s.[46] These in turn replaced the Boeing 737-200 Advs and BAe ATP airliners BA had used on its internal German scheduled services from Berlin.[44] At the time of German reunification, Dan-Air had five aircraft permanently stationed at Berlin Tegel, comprising three Boeing 737s (one -400, one -300 and one -200 Adv) and two HS 748s.[47] The former were used to fly Berlin-based holidaymakers to overseas holiday destinations on IT flights under contract to German package tour operators. The latter operated the airline's scheduled routes from Tegel to Amsterdam and Saarbrücken. Dan-Air discontinued its charter operations from Berlin on behalf of German tour operators at the end of the 1990/'91 winter season and replaced the aging 748 turboprop it had used on its Amsterdam schedule since the mid-1980s with larger, more advanced BAe 146 100 series jet equipment. It also introduced new direct scheduled air links from Berlin to Manchester and Newcastle via Amsterdam.[47][48][49] The Saarbrücken route was withdrawn at the end of the 1991 summer season, while the Amsterdam route was gradually taken over by NLM Cityhopper, the contemporary regional arm of Dutch flag carrier KLM.[50][51] This reduced Dan-Air's presence in Berlin to a single daily scheduled service as well as up to four weekly charter flights linking the airline's Gatwick base with its former overseas base at Tegel, which were operated by Gatwick-based aircraft and crews until the firm's takeover by BA at the end of October 1992.[52][53] The restructuring of Dan-Air's long-established Berlin operation was not only the result of political changes. It was also driven by its own corporate restructuring, which aimed to refocus the airline as a Gatwick-based short-haul "mainline" scheduled operator and involved phasing out its smaller aircraft and thinner routes.[54]
Other airlines that commenced/resumed scheduled operations from Berlin Tegel at the beginning of the post-reunification era included Aero Lloyd, Alitalia, American Airlines, Austrian Airlines, SAS Eurolink, Swissair and TWA.[55][56]
Aero Lloyd, Germania and Condor Berlin began operating charter flights from Berlin Tegel during that period.[55]
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The airport is linked by several BVG bus lines, which offer connection to the U-Bahn and S-Bahn, as well as to Regional Express trains and long distance trains: [57]
Note: The Alt-Tegel U-Bahn station and Tegel S-Bahn station do not serve Tegel Airport, but rather the Tegel quarter of Berlin. An underground station directly serving the airport had been planned since 1960s but was never built.
Tegel airport consists of four terminals. As the airport is small compared to other major airports, these terminals might be regarded as "halls" or "boarding areas"; nevertheless, they are officially referred to as "terminals".
Tegel Airport was originally planned to have a second hexagonal terminal like the main building.[60] The second terminal ring was never built because of Berlin Municipal budgetary constraints and the post-reunification decision to replace the former West Berlin airports with the new Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport.
The following airlines offer scheduled flights to Berlin-Tegel Airport:[61]
| Airlines | Destinations | Terminal |
|---|---|---|
| Aegean Airlines | Athens | A |
| airBaltic | Riga, Vilnius | A |
| Air Berlin | Cologne/Bonn, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich, Zürich | A |
| Air Berlin | Tel Aviv | B |
| Air Berlin | Alicante, Antalya [seasonal], Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi, Barcelona, Bari [begins 1 May, seasonal], Brindisi [begins 1 June, seasonal], Cairo, Calvi [begins 1 May, seasonal], Catania [seasonal], Chania [begins 5 May, seasonal], Copenhagen, Corfu [seasonal], Djerba [seasonal], Faro, Fuerteventura, Funchal, Gothenburg-Landvetter, Graz [begins 1 May, seasonal], Helsinki, Heraklion [seasonal], Hurghada, Ibiza [seasonal], Innsbruck [seasonal], Jerez de la Frontera [seasonal], Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden, Klagenfurt, Kos [seasonal], Kraków, Lamezia Terme [seasonal], Lanzarote, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Luxor, Málaga, Memmingen, Milan-Malpensa, Minorca [seasonal], Monastir [seasonal], Moscow-Domodedovo, Münster/Osnabrück, Naples [resumes 31 May], Nuremberg, Oslo-Gardermoen, Palma de Mallorca, Paris-Orly, Phuket [ends 25 April], Punta Cana, Reykjavik-Keflavik [begins 20 May, seasonal], Rhodes [seasonal], Rome-Fiumicino, Samos [seasonal], Santa Cruz de la Palma, Santorini [seasonal], Saarbrücken, Salzburg, Sharm el-Sheikh, Stockholm-Arlanda, St Petersburg, Stuttgart, Tenerife-South, Thessaloniki [seasonal], Varadero [ends 30 April], Venice-Marco Polo [begins 28 March, seasonal], Vienna, Visby [begins 19 June, seasonal], Westerland/Sylt [seasonal] | C |
| Air France | Paris-Charles de Gaulle | A |
| Air Malta | Malta | C |
| Air VIA | Burgas [begins 26 May, seasonal] | C |
| Alitalia | Turin | A |
| Armavia | Yerevan | C |
| Austrian Airlines | Vienna [begins 27 March] | A |
| Austrian operated by Tyrolean Airways | Vienna | D |
| Blue1 | Helsinki [resumes 3 March] | D |
| British Airways | London-Heathrow | A |
| Brussels Airlines | Brussels | D |
| Bulgaria Air | Sofia | C |
| Bulgarian Air Charter | Burgas [seasonal], Varna [seasonal] | C |
| Cirrus Airlines | Mannheim | D |
| Continental Airlines | Newark | A |
| Czech Airlines | Prague | D |
| Delta Air Lines | New York-JFK | A |
| Estonian Air | Tallinn | D |
| Finnair | Helsinki | D |
| flysmaland operated by Avitrans Nordic | Växjö | D |
| Germania | Aleppo, Damascus, Palma de Mallorca [begins 3 April, seasonal] | C |
| Hainan Airlines | Beijing-Capital | A |
| Hamburg International | Dubai [seasonal, ends 26 March], Elaz [begins 15 June, seasonal] | C |
| Iberia Airlines | Madrid | A |
| InterSky | Friedrichshafen, Graz [ends 26 March] | C |
| Jat Airways | Belgrade | C |
| KLM | Amsterdam | A |
| KLM operated by KLM Cityhopper | Amsterdam | A |
| Kullaflyg operated by Golden Air | Ängelholm [begins 31 March] | D |
| LOT Polish Airlines | Warsaw | D |
| LOT operated by EuroLOT | Warsaw | D |
| Lufthansa | Cologne/Bonn, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Moscow-Domodedovo, Munich, Stuttgart | A |
| Lufthansa operated by bmi | London-Heathrow | A |
| Lufthansa Regional operated by Contact Air | Stuttgart | D |
| Lufthansa Regional operated by Eurowings | Düsseldorf [ends 29 March], Nuremberg, Paris-Charles de Gaulle | D |
| Lufthansa Regional operated by Lufthansa CityLine | Cologne/Bonn, Düsseldorf, Nuremberg, Vienna [ends 26 March] | D |
| Luxair | Luxembourg, Saarbrücken | A |
| Malév Hungarian Airlines | Budapest | C |
| MIAT Mongolian Airlines | Moscow-Sheremetyevo, Ulan Bator | C |
| Nouvelair | Monastir [seasonal] | C |
| Pegasus Airlines | Antalya | C |
| Qatar Airways | Doha | A |
| Scandinavian Airlines | Copenhagen, Stockholm-Arlanda | D |
| Sky Airlines | Antalya | C |
| SunExpress | Antalya | C |
| Swiss International Air Lines | Zürich | A |
| Transaero Airlines | Moscow-Domodedovo | A |
| transavia.com | Amsterdam, Innsbruck [seasonal] | D |
| TUIfly | Antalya [begins 3 March, seasonal], Dalaman [begins 3 May, seasonal], Fuerteventura [seasonal, ends 30 April], Heraklion [seasonal], Hurghada [ends 29 April], Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Luxor [ends 29 April], Palma de Mallorca [begins 12 April, seasonal], Rhodes [begins 6 May, seasonal], Tel Aviv [ends 27 March], Tenerife-South [ends 25 April] | D |
| Turkish Airlines | Istanbul-Atatürk | B |
| Ukraine International Airlines | Kiev-Boryspil | C |
| Wind Jet | Forli | D |
| Airlines | Destinations |
|---|---|
| TNT Airways | Gdansk, Katowice, Liège |
There are no recorded accidents or incidents involving commercial airline operations at Berlin Tegel itself. However, two commercial flights, one of which was due to arrive at Tegel Airport and the other which had departed the airport, were involved in fatal accidents. These accidents are listed below:
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