The opening of Berlin’s new airport on October 31 is barely six weeks away.
On November 8 the plan is for Tegel, currently the capital’s leading airport, to cease all aviation activity.
So who will be Tegel’s final airline user? Germany’s Aerotelegraph is reporting Air France is expected to operate the final flight.
Letzter Flug in #Tegel: #AirFrance machte den Anfang und nun auch den Schluss. https://t.co/yOqgM2hd4R
— aeroTELEGRAPH (@aeroTELEGRAPH) September 17, 2020
This is logical seeing as Air France inaugurated Tegel back in 1960 (see this link for an embedded historical video), and Tegel occupies what used to be the French military zone in West Berlin.
Before the opening of Tegel, all three airlines allowed to fly into West Berlin (Air France, BEA and Pan Am), would operate at Tempelhof (in its day possibly the world’s finest close-in airport), which has been closed for many years.
BEA and Pan Am continued to use Tempelhof for many more years – I myself took one of Pan Am’s internal German flights into Tempelhof in 1970.
Air France’s first flight at Tegel in January 1960 was with a Lockheed Super Constellation.
At time of writing it is not known which aircraft type Air France will deploy for its final Tegel flight.
As previously reported Easyjet and Lufthansa are expected to open the new Berlin Brandenbug airport with a parallel inaugural landing.
Easyjet and Lufthansa to open Berlin airport with parallel landing
