After years of delays, Berlin Brandenburg airport opened last year. However, when I looked at the intercontinental destinations served from the airport, it turned out there were only a few!
So, how come that there are so few intercontinental flights from Berlin? Let’s Talk Aviation!
History
During the Cold War era, the city of Berlin was long divided by the Berlin Wall. This meant that the city did not have one but three airports. The oldest, Berlin Tempelhof Airport opened in 1923. When the initial plans for Berlin Brandenburg were laid out in 1996, the government decided that all air traffic to and from Berlin should go via Brandenburg.
This meant that there was no place left for Tempelhof. After a failed attempt to stop the closure of the airport, the airport closed in 2008.
The other two airports remained operational until the new airport was finished. The largest, Berlin Tegel was located on the northern side of the city and served 24 million passengers in its last complete year of operations, 2019 before the airport closed in 2020.
Berlin Schönefeld, was Berlins second airport and is located on the same site as Berlin Brandenburg. After the opening, the terminals were integrated into the new airport as Terminal 5. So, while the name ceased to exist, Berlin Brandenburg uses some of the old infrastructure.
German Airports
While Berlin is the capital of Germany, it does not have a large intercontinental airport. In 2019, three airports were larger than Berlin Tegel, Düsseldorf airport with 26 million, Munich with 48 million, and Frankfurt with 70 million annual passengers.
How come? In Germany, the government oversees handling the air service agreements with other countries. For example, the agreement with the United Arab Emirates specifies that UAE’s airline, Emirates can fly to a maximum of four cities within Germany.
Emirates in Germany
Up to this day, Emirates has been flying to Munich, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, and Hamburg. They use the A380 for all routes. While Emirates has expressed interest in adding Berlin to this list for well over a decade, the German government would have to grant Emirates an extra permit to start operating flights to Berlin. However, it is reluctant to do so.
Of course, one could say that Emirates should switch one of their four destinations in Germany for Berlin. Nonetheless, that would mean that Emirates should give up a likely profitable destination with a build-up infrastructure without any guarantees that the move would be a success. It, therefore, seems unlikely that Emirates would make such a move anytime soon. Unless, of course, Berlin can offer some great incentives that could make Emirates change its mind.
The German government didn’t present any specific reasons for the decision to limit Emirates to four destinations within Germany. There is however plenty of speculation. The main antagonist seems to be Lufthansa and their lobby at the higher ranks of the German government. Right now, the German Flag Carrier has its major hubs from which it serves intercontinental destinations in Frankfurt and Munich. Up to this date, the airline is hesitant to open an extra intercontinental base and prefers it to fly passengers from Berlin to one of its two major hubs in the southwestern part of the country.
Lufthansa
Why does Lufthansa have its bases in Frankfurt and Munich? This has grown this way historically. After the second world war, Lufthansa was an airline based out of West Germany and wasn’t allowed to operate flights into Berlin. It wasn’t until the fall of 1990, after the collapse of the Berlin wall that they operated their first flights to and from Berlin since the second world war.
This meant that at the time, Lufthansa had an existing infrastructure and route network built around Frankfurt and Munich and would make little sense to invest heavily into opening a new base in Berlin. It was easier to fly the passengers to their existing hubs while the talks over a new larger airport kept going and they do this to this day.
Just to give you an indication of many flights there are between those three cities. In the week of November 8, Lufthansa operated 72 flights between Berlin and Frankfurt, 53 between Berlin and Munich, and 66 between Munich and Frankfurt.
There are some intercontinental flights
In the same week, only a handful of destinations outside of Europe were served. The Singaporese airline Scoot, the low-cost subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, operated three flights between Singapore and Berlin. Furthermore, there were a dozen flights to holiday destinations in Northern Africa. And Qatar Airways flew five times between Qatar and the capital of Germany.
In the near future, it doesn’t look like this will change that much. The only non-European operator that has publicly announced that they will open new routes is United Airlines. Starting in the spring of 2022, they will commence daily flights from Berlin to New York and Washington.
As I mentioned before, Lufthansa is said to have a strong influence on who can operate to and from Germany. It is therefore not surprising that most of the airlines operating flights to and from Berlin are part of the same global alliance, the Star Alliance.
Future
Will Berlin therefore never become a large international hub? That’s hard to say, however, if the German government loosens restrictions on how many destinations can be served from various countries and some large airlines are willing to step in, it might be possible. Contrary to advice from aviation specialists, during the construction of Berlin Brandenburg, the mayor, and other local government officials insisted on installing airbridges capable of the A380 and other major jetliners compared to cheaper gates suitable for low-cost airlines. So, to get back to Emirates, if they decide to drop one of their current destinations in Germany, they can start operating their flagship, the A380, from the first day if they want to.