Berlin-Brandenburg Airport was officially opened on October 31, 2020. The first 12 months were heavily influenced by the corona pandemic, which is why the airport was only able to handle eight million passengers.

Only Terminal 1 is currently used. Terminals 2 and 5 (ex-Schönefeld) are out of service, although there is currently no date in sight for a possible start-up. BER repeatedly had to struggle with breakdowns and repeatedly caused a sensation because of the extremely long waiting times. The management does not go into this in its most recent broadcast, but celebrates the fact that in the first 12 months 74 airlines offered their services to 160 destinations in 53 countries. Furthermore, 24.400 tons of air freight were counted. 

In the first year of operation, due to the pandemic, there was only one long-haul connection with Qatar Airways to Doha. Scoot, the subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, is now connecting the Berlin Brandenburg region directly with Singapore again. United Airlines will be offering connections to New York and Washington from BER in the coming year. The Latvian airline SmartLynx Airlines flies non-stop to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates in winter.

“So far there has not been a day of normalcy at BER as we know it from the time before the pandemic. Nevertheless, the past twelve months have shown that BER has a functioning infrastructure. Carrying eight million passengers under the conditions of the pandemic was a piece of hard work. We would like to thank everyone who keeps the airport running. Now it is important to further improve the passenger processes and to adjust the BER to the growing number of passengers. I am particularly pleased that there are more long-haul connections from BER again. The increasing interest of the airlines in including BER in their offer shows that the capital region continues to be an attractive destination ”, explains Aletta von Massenbach, CEO of Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg GmbH: