[AMcWhirter]

Good news for business travellers visiting Berlin in the not too distant future.

Easyjet has announced that, if approved, it will soon be operating from Berlin Tegel.

The plan is for Easyjet to lease no fewer than 25 A320s from Air Berlin and employ a number of its staff. It will also acquire some of Air Berlin’s assets including airport slots. It is unclear whether all of these concern operations at Tegel.

Full details of Easyjet’s Tegel operations will be available at a later date.

https://mediacentre.easyjet.com/en/stories/11764-easyjet-signs-agreement-with-air-berlin

Right now, Easyjet (unlike Lufthansa’s Eurowings subsidiary which uses Tegel) operates from Berlin Schonefeld which is farther out of town and not so popular with business travellers.

Lufthansa mainline does not operate to Berlin. Although as we reported recently it will take over Air Berlin’s non-stop New York service which it will operate for a number of months only.

Lufthansa returns to Berlin

[transtraxman]

Is it not ironic that easyjet took over DBA for a while which it later rejected and that company fell into the hands of Air Berlin which later came back into the fold?

As far as I remember the German domestic flights into Berlin were operated by BEA, Pan Am and Air France as the western occupying powers into Berlin. Lufthansa had no such rights.There was also an East German airline whose name I cannot remember(Luftflug??).

After the fall of the wall and the reunification of Germany, there was a reorganisation of the domestic German airlines which led to the formation of Air Berlin and Deutsche BA. This latter operation was a loss leader for British Airways in a still restricted market. BA sold the operation to easyjet who had the right to withdraw and did so after paying the agreed sum. As it turned out BA sold the operation to Air Berlin who we have seen has now sold the operation (at least part) back to Easyjet. Ironies of the times.

[AMcWhirter]

In the Cold War era there were BEA and PanAm using Tempelhof (BEA used Viscounts and then BAC1-11s, PA used B727s) while Air France operated into the former Tegel airfield. Air France operated with Caravelles.

The Soviets barred Lufthansa from Berlin until October 1990.

East Germany’s Interflug (the DDR’s equivalane of Lufthansa) was based at Schonefeld.

[travelsforfun]

Actually I think it was the allied powers who prevented Lufthansa flying to (West) Berlin! Only airlines from the allied powers were allowed to operated commercial flights to West Berlin (which still had a special legal status). This is why BEA and Pan Am were the main carriers linking West Berlin with West Germany – Lufthansa did at one point serve West Berlin through a joint venture with Air France called EuroBerlin France, but this had to be majority French owned. This cosy arrangement affected other airlines too – for example, KLM could not fly to West Berlin and served Schönefeld instead. Direct flights between Amsterdam and West Berlin were operated by Britain’s Dan Air.

But in terms of the news, better that easyJet gets the Air Berlin operation in Berlin than Lufthansa/Eurowings – setting out the field of play for when Berlin Brandenburg airport one day opens.

Indeed, if Berlin Brandenburg airport had opened as planned, I wonder if Air Berlin’s fate might have been different.

[Author]

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