The largest customer of Berlin Airports, Easyjet, announced on Monday that the trial operation at the new Willy Brandt Airport Berlin-Brandenburg had been successfully completed. In doing so, they worked closely with the operating company. The low-cost airline will carry out the official first flight from BER on November 1, 2020.

During the trial operation, which lasted a total of 47 days, around 400 “test flights” were carried out at 60 gates. Of course, there was no flight, but the processes were checked for any weaknesses. For this purpose, different scenarios were simulated for each trial operating day; half of the days took place with extras. Among other things, the passenger and baggage handling from check-in to boarding as well as the processes for refueling, de-icing and aircraft positioning were tested. With the start of commercial flight operations on November 1, 2020, experts from the Easyjet network will also provide additional on-site support for two weeks to ensure that everything runs smoothly.

“We are pleased that we were able to successfully complete the trial operation at the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport and are proud to be the first airline to fly from BER soon. The opening of the airport is an important step for us, as our Berlin-Brandenburg fleet will then be stationed at a single airport and we will be able to operate our flight operations more efficiently. Germany and Berlin are still a strategically important part of our network and we have worked hard to be the strongest airline there and to contribute to the positive development of the metropolitan region. We are ready to go and look forward to flying together with our customers from BER soon, ”said Germany boss Stephan Erler.

Easyjet Europe machines are currently stationed at both Schönefeld Airport and Tegel. These will land at BER for the first time on October 31, 2020 with their evening flights. Lufthansa and Easyjet will make the official “opening landing” at around 14:00 p.m. in parallel.

On the following day, Easyjet will kick off all airlines and start commercial air traffic from the new airport. On November 1st at 6:45 am there is a direct route from BER to London Gatwick. The first commercial flight to London marks the end of Easyjet's move and the start at BER. Airlines like Austrian Airlines won't move from Tegel to Berlin-Brandenburg Airport until about a week later. The inner-city airport then closes, which was the case in Tempelhof many years ago.

Easyjet originally flew to Tegel, but in 2004 decided to set up a base in Schönefeld. At that time there were also very advanced plans to open it in Tempelhof, but that didn't really fit into the concept of the Berlin airports that THF wanted to get rid of, so that the low-cost airline had to be convinced by Schönefeld, which was also successful. The SXF was the first base outside of the United Kingdom.

The comeback in Berlin-Tegel came about through the takeover of slots and aircraft from the Air Berlin bankruptcy. Since January 2018, Easyjet has also had a base here that is even larger than the one in Schönefeld. In future, the two stations will be merged and run as “Berlin-Brandenburg”. The low-cost airline will no longer use Terminal 5 (ex-Schönefeld), but BER Terminal 1.