Berlin’s Tegel airport will close to flights this weekend, with Air France set to operate the final departure from the airport on Sunday November 8.
As previously reported, Air France was the inaugural carrier into Tegel back in 1960, and the airline has now confirmed that its flight AF1235 to Paris CDG will be the final service from the airport.
The flight is set to leave Tegel at 1500, arriving into Paris CDG at 1650, and Air France said that “customers on this last flight will enjoy special surprises”.
Ahead of this France’s flag carrier will also operate its first service into the new Berlin airport on Sunday, with flight AF1434 taking off from Paris CDG at 0730, arriving into BER’s Terminal 1 at 0910.
To commemorate the closure of Tegel, the carrier has published a potted history of its operations at the airport, which can be seen below.
Berlin airport opened to flights on October 31 after nearly a decade of delays, and carriers have been gradually switching over from Tegel this week.
The airport’s rail station (Flughafen BER Terminal 1-2) opened last month, and the long-mothballed Steigenberger Airport Hotel Berlin has also opened for business.
The history of Air France at Berlin-Tegel
- January 2, 1960: For the first time, a commercial flight operated by Lockheed Constellation landed at Berlin-Tegel after a stopover in Frankfurt. Air France launched regular operations to the airport, which until then had only been used for military purposes.
- 1961: The Caravelle operated all flights to Berlin-Tegel.
- 1976: The supersonic aircraft Concorde landed at Tegel – even before the start of its scheduled service. 60,000 visitors flocked to the airport.
- 1977: Air France operated the Paris-Düsseldorf-Berlin route twice a day by Boeing B727-200 (154 seats) – replacing the smaller Caravelle.
- 1980: Air France celebrated the 30th anniversary of its network in Germany and the 5,000,000th passenger on routes to and from Berlin.
- April 18, 1988: Air France’s Airbus A320 celebrates its world premiere on the Paris-Berlin route.
- November 1988: Start of the first of the 100 weekly flights of the new airline “EuroBerlin France” from Tegel to Frankfurt, Cologne, Munich and Stuttgart. The airline was 51% owned by Air France and 49% by Deutsche Lufthansa, and was based at Berlin-Tegel.
- December 1, 2017: the Air France subsidiary Joon started operations between Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Berlin-Tegel up to six times a day. With the suspension of Joon in 2019, Air France once again started operating the route itself.
- 2020: Until the start of the Coronavirus pandemic, Air France operated up to six daily services between Paris Charles de Gaulle and Berlin-Tegel. Air France has maintained these services even during the Coronavirus pandemic, with up to 21 weekly flights between Paris Charles de Gaulle and Berlin-Tegel.
- November 8, 2020: Air France operates up to five daily flights between the new Berlin-Brandenburg Airport (BER) and Paris-Charles de Gaulle. Passengers have access to Air France’s global network of some 170 destinations worldwide.
