Berlin Brandenburg Airport

Berlin Brandenburg Airport Willy Brandt Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg "Willy Brandt" (under construction)
IATA: BER (planned) ICAO: EDDB (planned)
Summary
Airport type	Public
Operator	Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg GmbH
Serves	Berlin, Germany, EU
Location	Schönefeld, Brandenburg
Hub for	Air Berlin EasyJet Germania Germanwings Lufthansa
Elevation AMSL	154 ft / 48 m
Website	ber.berlin-airport.de
Map
BER Location within Berlin
Runways
Direction Length Surface m ft 07L/25R 3,600 11,881 Asphalt 07R/25L 4,000 13,123 Concrete
Statistics (2011 TXL& SXF)
Aircraft movements 242,961 Passengers 24,033,456

Berlin Brandenburg Airport (IATA: BER, ICAO: EDDB) (German: Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg Willy Brandt) is a new international airport under construction 18 kilometres (11 mi) south of central Berlin, the capital city of Germany. It is scheduled to open on 3 June 2012. The airport is located in Schönefeld on the border between the states of Berlin and Brandenburg and will be named after the former Berlin Mayor, German Chancellor and Nobel Peace Laureate Willy Brandt. Construction costs are estimated at 2.5 billion euros.

The new airport will replace three airports in Berlin. Tempelhof Airport closed in 2008, and Tegel Airport is scheduled to close in 2012. The terminal infrastructure of the existing Berlin Schönefeld Airport will be closed in 2012 while some of the airport's infrastructure will be incorporated into the greatly expanded airport area to the south. The airport will inherit Schönefeld's existing southern runway, which will become the new airport's northern runway. Due to noise-abatement regulations, flights between midnight and 5:00 a.m. will not be permitted.

The Berlin Brandenburg Airport will be a hub for Air Berlin, Germania, Easyjet, Germanwings, and Lufthansa. The initial capacity of the airport is designed to serve 30–50 million passengers. The two main operators, Air Berlin and Lufthansa, each will handle around 30% of the scheduled commercial flights. Projections indicate the new airport will be the third busiest airport in Germany and thirteenth busiest in Europe in 2012. A major railway station built under the airport's check-in terminal will provide several connections with the wider region and establish a direct link to Berlin Hauptbahnhof.

History

Main article: Berlin Schönefeld Airport

Foundations

Construction of Interflug's new maintenance hangar (1961).

Berlin-Schönefeld airport was opened on 15 October 1934 to accommodate the Henschel aircraft plant. By the end of the Second World War, over 14,000 aircraft had been built. On 22 April 1945, the airport was occupied by Soviet troops, and the aircraft construction facilities were either dismantled or blown up. By late 1947, the airport rail link had been repaired and agricultural machinery was built and repaired on the site. In 1946, the Soviet Air Forces moved from Johannisthal Air Field to Schönefeld, including the civilian airline Aeroflot. In 1947, the Soviet Military Administration in Germany approved the construction of a civilian airport at the site. Between 1947 and 1990, Schönefeld airport was renamed on several occasions and stayed the main airport of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) (Zentralflughafen) until its demise.

The supersonic aircraft, Tu-144 prototype, in June 1971, Berlin-Schönefeld

One stipulation of the Four Power Agreement following World War II was a total ban on German carriers' participation in air transport to Berlin, where access was restricted to US, British, French and Soviet airliners. Located just outside of the Berlin city limits, this restriction did not apply to Schönefeld airport. Thus, German aircraft of the East German flag carrier Interflug could use Schönefeld airport, while West German Lufthansa was denied access to Berlin-Tegel and Tempelhof airports.

Following the German reunification in 1990, operating three separate airports became increasingly inefficient, leading the Berlin City Parliament to pursue a single airport of dimension and standards worthy of the now reunified German capital whilst limiting the number of citizens impacted by aircraft noise within the city. Therefore, it was decided to erect Berlin Brandenburg Airport at the site of Schönefeld Airport, which is scheduled to assume service on 3 June 2012. The new airport will only inherit one runway from the existing one. Most of the old airport, including the terminal and apron areas (the northern areas), will give way to the representative terminal of the German Federal Government.

Planning BER

Map of the planned (lighter) and existing (darker) structures of the future airport.

The primary reason for the construction of a new airport is to increase the airport capacity for the Berlin-Brandenburg region as two of the three existing airports were operating well beyond their maximum planned capacity. The decision for the Schönefeld site was made on 13 August 2004. It calls for an expansion of the existing Schönefeld airport into a single airport that will replace the three existing airports in and around Berlin. Indeed the 2008 closure of “Tempelhof International Airport” and 2012 closure of “Berlin-Tegel International Airport” were set as a prerequisite for opening BER to traffic.

In 2007, a total of 20 million passengers have used the three existing airports. The most congested airport is Tegel, which was designed for a capacity of 9.5 million, but handled over 13 million passengers in 2007. The first phase of BER is scheduled to open on 3 June 2012 and will have an initial capacity of up to 30 million passengers. Additional terminals have already been incorporated into the plans, raising the final capacity after completion of all juridically warranted expansions to 50 million passengers per year.

Construction

Construction work as of June 2011

After a ten-year administrative court struggle, the federal administrative court in Leipzig gave the go-ahead for the project on 16 March 2006 by ruling in favour of Berlin and against challenges by residents and municipalities near the future airport.

Construction work began on 5 September 2006. The initial projects were the access roads for the construction site and the extension of the future northern runway (the only physical feature BER will share with the existing Schönefeld airport). In 2007, work started on the railway tunnel that will run underneath the airfield and the Bundesautobahn 113 (A 113), connecting the new terminal to the motorway network, was completed. The construction work for the new terminal began in 2008 and by 2011, the airport fire brigade moved into its newly built facilities. The new airport was scheduled to open for traffic in late October 2011, which was subsequently postponed by 7 months to 3 June 2012. In 2004–2005, the inhabitants of the village of Diepensee (population 335) and parts of Selchow (35 residents) were resettled to either Königs Wusterhausen or Großziethen, since the areas were to become part of the future airport.

Both the expansion of the airport into BER as well as the quality of the connection to the railway network are subject of public debate. The Bürgerverein Brandenburg-Berlin e.V. represents local residents who protest against an expansion of air traffic to and from the south of Berlin. Also, experts for traffic and environmental issues criticize the late completion dates for the fast connection to the central station. Still, Berlin Hauptbahnhof will be connected within 30 minutes with trains departing every 15 minutes upon inauguration. By 2020 at the latest, this will be reduced to 20 minutes thanks to the reconstruction of the Dresdner bahn.

Naming

The airport is named after Nobel Peace Laureate Willy Brandt, former Mayor of West Berlin and Chancellor of West Germany.

From the opening in 2012 onwards, the Berlin Brandenburg Airport will use the letters BER, the current Metropolitan Area Code for the two Berlin airports, as its IATA code. It will also use the letters EDDB, the current code for Berlin Schönefeld Airport, as its ICAO code.

On 11 December 2009, the social-democratic city government of Berlin announced that Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport would receive the secondary name "Willy Brandt", after the former West German chancellor, mayor of West Berlin, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Opposition parties in the Berlin city council opposed the decision, the conservative Christian Democratic Union preferring Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, Albert Einstein, or Marlene Dietrich and the liberal Free Democratic Party preferring liberal politician and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Gustav Stresemann.

City government spokesman Günter Kolodziej announced the airport's primary name would retain the name "Berlin" for sake of travelers from abroad.

Infrastructure

During the construction of the new airport, some 3,400,000 tonnes (3,300,000 long tons; 3,700,000 short tons) of concrete will be used and 14 km (8.7 mi) of temporary access roads, nineteen new road bridges as well as a network of approximately 20 km (12 mi) of permanent roads will be built.

With the beginning of construction work in October 2006, an information and exhibition centre called Airportworld BER was opened between the S-Bahn stop Berlin-Schönefeld Flughafen and Schönefeld airport.

Since November 2007, there also is the BER-Infotower, which is situated in the central part of the construction site for the new terminal complex. From the top of the tower it is possible to get an overview of the entire construction site. The transparent and twisted tower, intended as a temporary construction, will remain after work is completed, greeting arrivals from the autobahn.

Runways

In December 2007, the old northern runway of Schönefeld airport was closed and dismantled to enable the construction of the final 650 m (2,130 ft) of the A 113. Hence, Schönefeld airport will be operating with a single runway until the opening of BER in 2012.

In late 2007, the southern, asphalt runway (07R/25L) of Schönefeld airport was extended from 3,000 to 3,600 m (9,800 to 11,800 ft). This runway will serve as the northern runway for BER. An additional, concrete runway with a length of 4,000 m (13,000 ft) and a width of 60 m (200 ft) was constructed to the south of the new terminal.

With a distance of 1,900 m (6,200 ft) between the parallel runways, these are enabled to operate independently and without wake turbulence interferences.

Terminal

Panorama view of the construction site for the terminal buildings in July 2010.

The terminal building will be situated between the two runways, creating a midfield airport. The main pier is 750 m (2,460 ft) long, the two piers to the north and the south are 350 m (1,150 ft) each. The terminal will have an initial capacity of up to 30 million passengers, with the option of expanding the capacity through the construction of two additional satellite terminals parallel to the initial building. With all additions, the final capacity will be of 50 million passengers.

In the first phase, the terminal will have 25 jet bridges. The southern pier will be reserved exclusively for Air Berlin, while the northern pier features minimalistic design with "walk-boarding-gates"/airstairs instead of jet bridges to cater to the high demand from no-frills Low-cost airlines. The new terminal building will also feature gates able to handle the Airbus A380.

The first module of the midfield cargo facilities will have a capacity of 60,000 tonnes (59,000 long tons; 66,000 short tons) of cargo per year. With the completion of all planned expansions, this can be expanded to handle up to 600,000 tonnes (590,000 long tons; 660,000 short tons) per year.

The terminal will include an underground railway station.

View from the old "Flughafen Schönefeld" on the new airport building a few months before the opening

Government terminal

The two Luftwaffe Airbus A340 will be stationed in an officially designated airport area serving the Federal Government

The German Federal Government is relocating its VIP jets (“Flugbereitschaft”) currently stationed in Cologne Bonn Airport to Berlin, creating a military part to the north of the northern runway. This will eliminate the need to fly the two Airbus A340, six Airbus A310, two Airbus A319CJ and four Bombardier Global 5000 to Berlin each time they are to collect officials in the capital.

To this end, a representative, wood-and-glass terminal is being built in a birch tree grove for at least 310 million Euros. It will be situated next to the current SXF terminal, and will also be used for state visits. With completion postponed until 2014, the current SXF terminal will be used as an interim solution.

Business park

The area surrounding BER is zoned as a commercial district. Plans call for the construction of shopping centers and parking structures as well as industrial, commercial and office spaces.

Situated directly at the terminal complex will be the BER Airport City with an area of 16 ha (40 acres). Marketing of the real estate has begun in autumn 2006 and beginning in 2009 offices, hotels, car rentals, four parking decks with a capacity of 10,000, restaurants and retailers are built here.

To the north is the BER Business Park Berlin with a planned area of 109 ha (270 acres) for industrial and commercial use as well as congress centers.

A further Business Park North was planned as a future use of the area of the old Schönefeld terminal. However, so far there are no definite plans for the future use of this area.

ILA Berlin Air Show

Main articles: ILA Berlin Air Show and Berlin ExpoCenter Airport

The ILA Berlin Air Show is one of the world's largest international aerospace exhibitions and trade fairs, held biennially on the southern section of Berlin-Schönefeld Airport since 1992.

In 2012 it will be held at the new Berlin ExpoCenter Airport built specifically to this end in the southwestern section of the Berlin Brandenburg Airport and will form part of the Messe Berlin. The ILA is organised by the latter, in association with the German aerospace industry, represented by the Bundesverband der Deutschen Luft- und Raumfahrtindustrie (BDLI) e.V., Berlin.

The ILA’s main display sections include commercial aviation, aerospace, military aviation and military technology, equipment and engines, general aviation and helicopters.

Airlines and destinations

Air Berlin will operate as the main carrier.

Air Berlin, the second largest airline in Germany, will use the Berlin Brandenburg airport as its main intercontinental hub, occupying most of Pier C along with oneworld partners. Air Berlin handles most flights in Berlin, with a share of over 30 percent as of 2011. Air Berlin is set to join the global airline alliance Oneworld at the start of 2012. Lufthansa is also set to expand its operations in Berlin, its biggest single expansion at any airport to date. The destinations offered will jump from 8 to 38 by Lufthansa alone, 49 if subsidiaries are counted.

Air Berlin laid the foundations for the first maintenance hangar at Berlin Brandenburg Airport on 21 March 2011, doubling the maintenance capacity of Air Berlin Technik at its future Berlin site. Lufthansa Technik is also building a 16 million Euro hangar.

In summer 2011, 88 airlines serve 164 destinations in 54 countries from Berlin airports (TXL and SXF). 28 connections are non-European, 13 destinations are intercontinentally served. Among the longhaul flights are connections to New York City, Bejing, Doha, Bangkok, Phuket, Dubai, Miami, Mombasa, Punta Cana, Varadero and Ulan Bator. These services will be moved to the new airport.

The airport terminal has three piers: Pier A, equipped with walk and bus boarding gates, is designated for low-cost carriers. Piers B and C have airbridges as well as remote bus boarding aircraft stands. Pier C will be used by Air Berlin and other oneworld airlines.

All services will begin 3 June 2012 unless otherwise stated.

Airlines	Destinations	Pier
Aer Lingus	Dublin	B
Aeroflot	Moscow-Sheremetyevo	B
Aerosvit Airlines	Dnipropetrovsk	B
Air Berlin	Abu Dhabi, Alicante, Antalya, Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi, Barcelona, Bari, Basel/Mulhouse, Budapest, Catania, Cologne/Bonn, Copenhagen, Dubai, Düsseldorf, Faro, Frankfurt, Fuerteventura, Funchal, Gdańsk, Gothenburg-Landvetter, Graz, Helsinki, Hurghada, Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden, Kraków, Lanzarote, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Linz, Los Angeles, Luxor, Málaga, Miami, Milan-Malpensa, Mombasa, Moscow-Domodedovo, Munich, Münster/Osnabrück, New York-JFK, Nuremberg, Olbia, Oslo-Gardermoen, Palma de Mallorca, Paris-Orly, Rome-Fiumicino, Santa Cruz de la Palma, Saarbrücken, Salzburg, Sharm el-Sheikh, Stockholm-Arlanda, St Petersburg, Stuttgart, Tel Aviv-Ben Gurion, Tenerife-South, Venice-Marco Polo, Verona, Vienna, Zürich Seasonal: Chania, Corfu, Heraklion, Ibiza, Innsbruck, Jerez de la Frontera, Kos, Lamezia Terme, Minorca, Naples, Phuket, Punta Cana, Reykjavik-Keflavik, Rhodes, Rønne/Bornholm, Samos, Santorini, Thessaloniki, Varadero, Visby, Westerland/Sylt	B (Non-Schengen) C (Schengen)
Air France	Marseille [begins 8 June 2012], Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Toulouse	B
Air Malta	Malta	B
Air VIA	Seasonal charter: Burgas, Varna	B
airBaltic	Riga	B
Arkia Israel Airlines	Seasonal Charter: Tel Aviv	B
Armavia	Seasonal: Yerevan	B
Atlasjet	Charter: Antalya	B
Austrian Airlines	Vienna	B
Belavia	Minsk	B
British Airways	London-Heathrow	B
Brussels Airlines	Brussels	B
Bulgaria Air	Sofia	B
Bulgarian Air Charter	Seasonal charter: Burgas, Varna	B
Central Connect Airlines	Prague	B
Condor	Agadir, Fuerteventura, Hurghada, Lanzarote, Larnaca, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Sharm el-Sheikh, Tenerife-South Seasonal: Antalya, Burgas, Chania, Constanţa, Corfu, Dalaman, Djerba, Heraklion, Jerez, Kos, Rhodes, Palma de Mallorca, Santorini, Tivat	B
Croatia Airlines	Seasonal: Dubrovnik, Split	B
EasyJet	Agadir, Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Basel/Mulhouse, Bristol, Brussels, Budapest, Cagliari, Copenhagen, Geneva, Glasgow-International, Liverpool, Lisbon, London-Gatwick, London-Luton, Lyon, Madrid, Málaga, Manchester, Milan-Malpensa, Naples, Nice, Olbia, Palma de Mallorca, Paris-Orly, Pisa, Rome-Fiumicino, Tenerife-South, Thessaloniki, Venice-Marco Polo Seasonal: Corfu, Dubrovnik, Heraklion, Ibiza, Mykonos [begins 24 June], Rhodes [begins 23 June], Split	A
EgyptAir	Cairo	B
El Al	Tel Aviv-Ben Gurion	B
Finnair	Helsinki	C
Freebird Airlines	Charter: Antalya	B
Germania	Charter: Burgas, Debrecen, Palma de Mallorca, Sármellék	B
Germanwings	Cologne/Bonn, Maastricht/Aachen, Munich, Pristina, Stuttgart Seasonal: Heraklion, Pula, Rijeka	A
Hainan Airlines	Beijing-Capital	B
Iberia	Madrid	C
Iceland Express operated by Holidays Czech Airlines	Reykjavík-Keflavík	A
InterSky	Friedrichshafen	B
Israir Airlines	Tel Aviv-Ben Gurion	B
Jat Airways	Belgrade	B
Jet2.com	Leeds/Bradford	A
KLM	Amsterdam	B
KLM operated by KLM Cityhopper	Amsterdam	B
LOT Polish Airlines	Warsaw-Chopin	B
LOT operated by EuroLOT	Warsaw-Chopin	B
Lufthansa	Barcelona, Bastia [begins 9 June], Beirut, Bergen [begins 6 June], Birmingham, Bologna, Bucharest-Henri Coandă, Budapest, Catania, Cologne/Bonn, Dubrovnik [begins 9 June], Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Geneva, Helsinki, Istanbul-Atatürk [begins 4 June], Izmir, Lyon, Malaga, Manchester, Milan-Linate, Moscow-Vnukovo, Munich, Nice, Palma de Mallorca, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Reykjavik-Keflavík [begins 7 June], Rome-Fiumicino, Split [begins 7 June], Stockholm-Arlanda, Stuttgart, Tel Aviv-Ben Gurion, Valencia [begins 6 June], Vienna, Westerland/Sylt, Zadar [begins 9 June], Zagreb	B
Lufthansa operated by bmi	London-Heathrow	B
Lufthansa Regional operated by Augsburg Airways	Munich	B
Lufthansa Regional operated by Contact Air	Düsseldorf, Stuttgart	B
Lufthansa Regional operated by Eurowings	Düsseldorf, Nuremberg	B
Lufthansa Regional operated by Lufthansa CityLine	Munich	B
Luxair	Luxembourg, Saarbrücken	B
MIAT Mongolian Airlines	Moscow-Sheremetyevo, Ulanbaatar	B
Norwegian Air Shuttle	Aalborg, Bergen, Copenhagen, Oslo-Gardermoen, Sandefjord, Stavanger, Stockholm-Arlanda, Trondheim	A
Nouvelair	Charter: Djerba, Enfidha	B
Pegasus Airlines	Ankara, Istanbul-Sabiha Gökçen, Izmir	B
Qatar Airways	Doha	B
Rossiya	St Petersburg	B
Royal Air Maroc	Casablanca	B
Royal Jordanian	Amman-Queen Alia	B
Ryanair	Dublin, East Midlands, London-Stansted, Milan-Orio al Serio, Oslo-Rygge, Stockholm-Skavsta	A
Scandinavian Airlines	Copenhagen, Stockholm-Arlanda	B
Sky Airlines	Charter: Antalya	B
Sky Work Airlines	Bern	B
SunExpress	Antalya, Istanbul-Sabiha Gökçen, Izmir	A
SunExpress operated by SunExpress Deutschland	Adana, Ankara, Kayseri, Gaziantep, Hurghada, Marsa Alam, Sharm El Sheikh	A
Swiss International Air Lines	Zürich	B
Swiss European Airlines	Zürich	B
Syrian Air	Damascus, Vienna	B
TAP Portugal	Lisbon [begins 5 June]	B
Transaero Airlines	Moscow-Domodedovo	B
Transavia	Amsterdam, Eindhoven	A
TUIfly	Summer Season: Dalaman, Heraklion, Kos, Rhodes Winter Season: Fuerteventura, Hurghada, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Luxor, Tenerife-South	B
Tunisair	Djerba, Enfidha, Tunis	B
Turkish Airlines	Ankara [begins 6 June], Istanbul-Atatürk	B
Ukraine International Airlines	Kiev-Boryspil	B
United Airlines	Newark	B
Vueling Airlines	Barcelona, Bilbao [begins 23 June], Madrid	B
Wind Jet	Rimini	A
WOW air	Reykjavik-Keflavik [begins 5 June]	A

Cargo airlines

Airlines	Destinations
FedEx Feeder	Paris-Charles de Gaulle
Swiss WorldCargo	Zürich
TNT Airways	Gdańsk, Katowice, Liège
West Air Sweden	Cologne/Bonn

Busiest routes

Combined total passengers at TXL and SXF in 2010

Destination	Airport(s)	Passengers
Munich	MUC	1,816,693
Frankfurt	FRA	1,610,372
Cologne	CGN	1,379,294
London	LGW, LHR, LTN, STN	1,281,842
Stuttgart	STR	985,857
Düsseldorf	DUS	930,865
Paris	CDG, ORY	884,195
Zurich	ZRH	802,464
Palma de Mallorca	PMI	584,709
Vienna	VIE	554,663
Antalya	AYT	435,545
Amsterdam	AMS	432,187
Moscow	DME, SVO, VKO	431,007
Istanbul	IST, SAW	406,063
Madrid	MAD	397,646

Statistics

The future Berlin Brandenburg Airport is publicly owned by the Flughafen Berlin-Schönefeld GmbH, an airport company. The members of the company are the states of Berlin and Brandenburg equally holding 37% of the shares. The Federal Republic of Germany, the third member, holds 26% of the shares. The two managing directors are Prof. Dr. Rainer Schwarz and Dr. Manfred A. Körtgen. In 2011 the airport company operated the soon to be closed Tegel airport (TXL) and the Schönefeld airport (SXF) and handled over 24,033,456 passengers, an increase of 7.7 percent against 2010.

Combined TXL & SXF – Airport and Traffic Data

Year	Revenue	Employees	Passengers	Change	Freight	Change	Post	Movements	Change
2010	506,360,038 €	1,468	22,323,511	06.4%	36,675 t	025,2%	4,806 t	235,165	01.5%
2011			24,033,456	07.7%				242.900	03.0%

Access

Location

Main article: Berlin

The Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) is located in Schönefeld, a town of 13,000 inhabitants in the German state of Brandenburg. It is situated 18 km (11 mi) southeast of Berlin's city center in northeastern Germany and covers an area of 1.470 hektar.

The airport serves the German capital Berlin with its population of 3.5 million people, and the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region with a total population of around 6 million inhabitants.

The airport is part of the Time zone CET (UTC+1) and, from the last Sunday in March to last Sunday in October, operates according to CEST (UTC+2). Located in the European Plains, the airport's region is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate experiencing hot dry summers and cold snowy winters.

Rail

File:Anbindung BER.png

Map of future rail connections in Berlin and Brandenburg. An express line will serve the Berlin Hauptbahnhof in 30 minutes.

The terminal is connected to a 3.1 km (1.9 mi) long railway tunnel running from east to west underneath the apron and the terminal complex. As the nine tunnel sections were the first structures to be built, they could be constructed in the form of conventional excavations.

A railway station with six tracks forms the lowest level of the terminal. Two tracks serve as a terminus for the S-Bahn – with the S9 serving the northern and the S45 serving the southern public transit ring, while the other four tracks handle EuroCity, InterCity, Intercity-Express and Regional-Express trains. It was confirmed in august 2011 that multiple daily Intercity-Express and InterCity will connect the airport to Bielefeld, Hannover, Hamburg, Dresden, Leipzig, Halle, Wolfsburg, as well as EuroCity trains connecting to Wroclaw and Krakow in Poland, Amsterdam in the Netherlands and Prague in the Czech Republic.

About half of all passengers are estimated to access BER by rail. An express line (Regionalbahn) will connect the airport with the Berlin Hauptbahnhof (Berlin central station) in 30 minutes. Two more stops, Potsdamer Platz and Berlin Südkreuz, will be part of the Airport Express, which is planned to make the distance in just under 20 minutes by 2015, when a new train track will be inaugurated. Over 10 % of passengers are expected to come from Poland, also thanks to upgraded highways on the Polish side of the border, making BER one of the biggest airports for Poland and the official airport of the 2012 European Football Championship venues in western Poland.

Road

Freeway map of Berlin

The Berlin Brandenburg Airport is connected through its own exit to the freeway A113 between the city freeway A100 and the outer city freeway ring A10.

The A 113, the southern Berlin freeway in the direction of Dresden was relocated and expanded to six lanes. A continuation of A 113 along the Teltow canal forms the connection to the Berlin city freeway A 100. The highway 96a was expanded to four lanes in the section towards Potsdam.

Four car parks and a car rental centre will be installed by the time BER opens. Around 10,000 parking spaces will be available for arriving and departing passengers. Parking spaces are built as four multi-storey car parks, each with 2,200 spots.

Bus

Public transport connections at the new airport will include numerous bus services. The express buses X7 and X11 connect BER and U-Bahn Rudow, the underground line U7, every five minutes. The X11 bus continues to Lichterfelde-West and on to Dahlem. Other bus lines also stop off at a number of stations, providing connections with Berlin’s public transport network and destinations in Brandenburg.

See also: Transport in Berlin

Accidents and incidents

German Democratic Republic/ SXF era

• On 14 August 1972, an Ilyushin Il-62 aircraft of Interflug (registration DM-SEA) enroute to Burgas Airport crashed shortly after take-off from Schönefeld Airport near Königs Wusterhausen, killing all 156 passenger and crew on board. See Interflug Flight DM-SEA [sic].
• On 22 November 1977, a Tupolev Tu-134 aircraft of Interflug (registration DM-SCM) crashed upon landing at Schönefeld Airport due to a falsely configured autopilot. There were no fatalities among the 74 passenger and crew, but the aircraft was damaged beyond repair.

Berlin-Schönefeld Airport, the main airport of the GDR. After take-off in 1972, the Interflug Flight DM-SEA crashed. 156 passengers and crew perished.

• On 19 August 1978, LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165, a LOT flight from Gdansk Airport to Schönefeld (carried out on a Tupolev Tu-134, registration SP-LGC),was hijacked and forced to land at Tempelhof Airport in West Berlin, thus having been used as a means for escaping the Eastern Bloc. In these cases, perpetrators were usually not charged by Western authorities.
• On 12 December 1986, an Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-134 (registration CCCP-65795) coming from Minsk Airport crashed in Berlin-Bohnsdorf on its approach towards Schönefeld airport, after having attempted to land on a runway that was temporary blocked for construction work, killing 72 of the 82 passengers and crew on board.
• On 17 July 1989, an Ilyushin Il-62 aircraft of Interflug (registration DDR-SEW) bound for Moscow crashed shortly after take-off into a field near the airport and caught fire. 21 people on board as well as one person on the ground were killed. The East German authorities feared an act of sabotage due to the anniversary of the 17 June 1953, which lead to a delayed aid for injured people. West German rescuers offering help were denied access to the scene. The cause for the accident was later given as a jammed rudder due to a construction failure.

Federal Republic of Germany/ SXF era

• On 28 March 2000, a Boeing 737-300 of Germania (registration D-AGES) operating a charter flight on behalf of LTU from Tenerife South Airport to Berlin-Schönefeld was the subject of an attempted hijack in mid-flight. A passenger forced his way into the cockpit, where he attacked the pilot, leading to a sudden loss of altitude. The perpetrator was restrained and the flight continued to Berlin.
• On 19 June 2010, a 1944-built, historic Douglas DC-3 D-CXXX of Berlin Air Services crashed shortly after take off on a local sightseeing flight, causing 7 injuries but no fatalities.

See also

• Berlin, Brandenburg, Germany
• Air Berlin, Germania (airline), Lufthansa
• Airport, Transport in Berlin, Transport in Germany
• Tempelhof Airport, Tegel Airport, Schönefeld Airport
• ILA Berlin Air Show, Berlin ExpoCenter Airport
• Busiest airports in Europe by passenger traffic

References

Bibliography

• Bernd Kuhlmann: Schönefeld bei Berlin. 1 Amt, 1 Flughafen und 11 Bahnhöfe. Ges. für Verkehrspolitik und Eisenbahnwesen, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-89218-038-5.
• Hans von Przychowski: Fehlstart oder Bruchlandung? Berlin-Brandenburger Flughafen-Politik. Verlorene Jahre – verlorene Millionen. Das Ringen um den BBI, 1990–2000, eine Zeittafel mit Kommentaren. NoRa, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-935445-26-1.

External links

• Official website
• Live webcam showing the new airport under construction
• Current view as of February 2011 Template:De icon