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Berlin Tegel Airport

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Berlin-Tegel International Airport
Flughafen Berlin-Tegel
Berlin International Airport in Tegel
Summary
Airport typePublic
OperatorBerlin Airports
ServesBerlin, Germany
LocationTegel
Elevation AMSL122 ft / 37 m
Coordinates52°33′35″N 013°17′16″E / 52.55972°N 13.28778°E / 52.55972; 13.28778
Websitewww.berlin-airport.de
Runways
Direction Length Surface
m ft
08L/26R 3,023 9,918 Asphalt
08R/26L 2,428 7,966 Asphalt
Source: German AIP at EUROCONTROL

Berlin-Tegel "Otto Lilienthal" (IATA: TXL, ICAO: EDDT) (often shortened to Tegel) is an airport in Berlin, Germany. It lies in Tegel, a section of the northern borough of Reinickendorf. Tegel Airport is notable for its hexagonal terminal building around an open square, which makes for walking distances as short as 100 feet from the airplane, through luggage retrieval and customs, to taxi or bus. Tegel is referred to as the "Frequent Flyer Airport" and has the most scheduled flights of the three airports serving Berlin. In 2007 it will be serving over 13 million passengers. The airport is scheduled to close in 2012, six months after the completion of a new terminal complex at Berlin-Schönefeld International Airport, which is to be renamed Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport and slated to handle all commercial flights from and to Berlin thenceforth.

Main building


History

During the Berlin Airlift in 1948 what was then the longest runway in Europe (2,400 m) was built at Tegel.

West Berlin's special political status during the Cold War era (April 8, 1945 - October 2, 1990) meant that all air traffic to and from the Western half of Germany's divided former and present capital was restricted to the airlines of the three Western victorious powers of World War II, i.e. only those headquartered in the US, UK and France. In addition, all flightdeck crew, i.e. pilots, flight engineers and navigators, flying aircraft into and out of West Berlin through the Allied air corridors were required to hold American, British or French passports.

Air France was the first airline to commence regular commercial operations at Tegel on January 24, 1960. The airline decided to transfer its operations from Tempelhof Airport to Tegel because the former airport's runways were too short to handle first generation jet aircraft such as the Aérospatiale Caravelle, Boeing 707, De Havilland Comet and Douglas DC-8 without payload or range restrictions.

Pan Am became the second airline to commence year-round, scheduled operations at Tegel Airport when it launched a once-a-week service from New York JFK in May 1964. This service was operated with Boeing 707s or Douglas DC-8s which could not operate from Tempelhof, the airline's West Berlin base at the time, with a viable payload. The service routed either through Prestwick in Scotland or Shannon, Ireland. It ceased in October 1971.

From April 1968 onwards all non-scheduled services, i.e. primarily the rapidly growing number of inclusive tour (IT) charter flights that several wholly privately owned, Independent UK airlines as well as a number of US supplemental carriers had operated from Tempelhof since the early 1960s under contract to West Berlin's leading package tour operators, were concentrated at Tegel to alleviate increasing congestion at the former airport and to make better use of the latter. (At the time Tegel was underutilised.) A new passenger handling facility exclusively dedicated to charter airline passengers was opened to accommodate the additional traffic. Both this facility (a wooden shed) and the original terminal used by Air France's and Pan Am's scheduled passengers (a pre-fabricated shed) were located at the airport's north side. Following the transfer of all charter traffic to Tegel, Channel Airways, Dan-Air Services, Laker Airways and Modern Air Transport began stationing several of their aircraft at the airport. Channel Airways' collapse in late 1971 provided the impetus for Dan-Air to take over the failed carrier's charter contracts and to expand its own operations at Tegel. (Dan-Air, one of Britain's foremost wholly privately owned, Independent airlines during the 1970s and '80s, eventually became the third-biggest operator at Tegel Airport, ahead of Air France. In addition to firmly establishing itself as the airport's and West Berlin's leading charter airline, it also operated scheduled services linking Tegel with Amsterdam Schiphol, Saarbrücken and London Gatwick, its main operational base. By the time that airline was taken over by British Airways at the end of October 1992, it had served Tegel Airport for a quarter of a century.) Modern Air's departure in October 1974 coincided with Aeroamerica's arrival. That carrier's departure following the end of the 1979 summer season was followed by Air Berlin USA's arrival. Laker Airways' decision to replace its Tegel-based BAC One-Eleven fleet with one of its newly acquired Airbus A300 B4 widebodies from the start of the 1981 summer season resulted in Monarch Airlines taking over that airline's long-standing charter contract with Flug Union Berlin, at the time West Berlin's second-largest tour operator (after Berliner Flug Ring). (Several years later, Monarch Airlines provided the aircraft as well as the flightdeck crew and maintenance support for EuroBerlin France, a Tegel-based scheduled airline headquartered in Paris, France. EuroBerlin was jointly owned by Air France and Lufthansa, with the former holding a 51% majority stake, thereby making it a French legal entity and enabling it to conduct commercial airline operations at West Berlin.)

Other airlines operating regular services to/from West Berlin included:

In addition to the aforementioned airlines, a host of others - mainly British Independents and US supplementals - were frequent visitors to Berlin Tegel, especially during the early 1970s. These included Britannia Airways, British Airtours, British United, Caledonian, Caledonian/BUA / British Caledonian, Overseas National Airways, Saturn Airways, Trans International Airlines, Transamerica Airlines and World Airways. Furthermore, during the early '70s both Pan Am and TWA used to operate regular "Advanced Booking Charter (ABC)" flights from Tegel to the USA as well. During that period the airport scene at Berlin Tegel could be very colourful, with Air France Caravelles, the UK Independents' BAC One-Elevens, De Havilland Comets and Hawker Siddeley Tridents as well as the US supplementals' Boeing 707s, Convair "Coronados" and Douglas DC-8s congregating on its ramp. During 1974 alone 22 airlines were operating at Tegel Airport.

The airport's current main, hexagonally shaped terminal building, which is located at the airport's south side, became operational on November 1, 1974. A British Airways Lockheed L-1011 "Tristar" 1, a Laker Airways McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10, a Pan Am Boeing 747-100 and an Air France Airbus A300 B2 were among the widebodied aircraft specially flown in on that day for the inauguration of the new terminal building. Dan-Air operated the first commercial flight to arrive at the airport's new terminal at 6.00 a.m. local time with a BAC One-Eleven that was in-bound from Tenerife.

Following Pan Am's and British Airways' move from Tempelhof to Tegel on September 1, 1975, the latter replaced Tempelhof as the main airport of West Berlin.

Terminals

Tegel has 4 Terminals, A, B, C and D. The main hall is A and B. Most of the airlines which use this airport are located there.

Terminal C is the Air Berlin terminal. Most of the Air Berlin flights start in this Terminal. C is temporary solution because all other terminals were full to capacity and they needed to build a new terminal. It was opened in the first quarter of 2007.

D is the smallest, main user is TUIfly.

Airlines and destinations

  • AirBaltic (Riga, Vilnius)
  • Air Berlin (Alicante, Antalya, Arrecife, Barcelona, Catania, Cologne/Bonn, Copenhagen, Corfu, Dalaman, Djerba, Düsseldorf, Faro, Frankfurt, Fuerteventura, Funchal, Gothenburg-City, Helsinki, Heraklion, Hurghada, Ibiza, Jerez, Kos, Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden, Las Palmas, London-Stansted, Luxor, Mahon, Málaga, Milan-Bergamo, Monastir, Moscow-Domodedovo, Münster/Osnabrück, Munich, Naples, Nuremberg, Palma de Mallorca, Rhodes, Rimini, Rome-Fiumicino, Saarbrücken, Samos, Sharm El-Sheikh, Santa Cruz de la Palma, St. Petersburg, Stockholm-Arlanda, Stuttgart, Tenerife-South, Thessaloniki, Westerland/Sylt, Vienna, Zürich)
  • Air China (Beijing)
Terminal layout
Overview of Berlin's three airports

Accidents and incidents

There are no recorded accidents or incidents involving commercial airline operations at Berlin Tegel itself. However, two commercial flights, one of which was due to arrive at Tegel Airport and the other which had departed the airport, were involved in fatal accidents. These accidents are listed below:

  • On November 15, 1966 a Pan Am Boeing 727-21 (registration N317PA) operating the return leg of the airline's daily cargo flight from Berlin to Frankfurt Rhein-Main Airport (flight number PA 708) was due to land that night at Tegel Airport, rather than Tempelhof, due to runway resurfacing work taking place at that time at the latter. Berlin Control had cleared flight 708 for an ILS approach to Tegel Airport's runway 08, soon after the crew had begun its descent from FL030 before entering the southwest air corridor over East Germany on the last stretch of its journey to Berlin. The aircraft impacted the ground near Dallgow, East Germany, almost immediately after the crew had acknowledged further instructions received from Berlin Control, just ten miles from Tegel Airport. All three crew members lost their lives in this accident. Visibility was poor, and it was snowing at the time of the accident. Following the accident, the Soviet military authorities in East Germany returned only half of the aircraft's wreckage to their US counterparts in West Berlin. This excluded vital parts, such as the FDR, the CVR as well as the plane's flight control systems, its navigation and communication equipment. The subsequent NTSB investigation report concluded that the aircraft's descent below its altitude clearance limit was the accident's probable cause. However, the NTSB was unable to establish the factors that had caused the crew to descend below its cleared minimum altitude.
  • Between 1969 and 1982 Berlin Tegel was the destination of several hijackings involving aircraft operated by LOT Polish Airlines on domestic flights within Poland. These hijackings were carried out by Polish citizens dissatisfied with life behind the Iron Curtain. The hijackings themselves were a means of forcing the authorities in communist Poland to let the hijackers emigrate to the West. Once the aircraft had landed at Tegel, the French military authorities in charge of the airport during the Cold war era let the hijackers and anyone else who did not wish to return to Poland disembark and claim political asylum in West Berlin. The aircraft, its crew and those passengers who did not want to disembark were subsequently returned to Poland.

Notes

  1. Berlin Airport Company, Monthly Timetable Booklets for Berlin Tempelhof and Berlin Tegel Airports, Berlin Airport Company, West Berlin, various editions April 1968 - October 1990
  2. Berlin Airport Company - Special Report on Air France's 25th Anniversary at Berlin Tegel, March 1985 Monthly Timetable Booklet for Berlin Tempelhof and Berlin Tegel Airports, Berlin Airport Company, West Berlin, 1985
  3. Berlin Airport Company, September and June 1964 and October 1971 Monthly Timetable Booklets for Berlin Tempelhof and Berlin Tegel Airports, Berlin Airport Company, West Berlin, 1964 and 1971
  4. ^ Berlin Airport Company, April and August 1968 Monthly Timetable Booklets for Berlin Tempelhof and Berlin Tegel Airports, Berlin Airport Company, West Berlin, 1968
  5. Berlin Airport Company, April 1972 Monthly Timetable Booklet for Berlin Tempelhof and Berlin Tegel Airports, Berlin Airport Company, West Berlin, 1972
  6. Berlin Airport Company, April 1981, January 1984, April 1990 and November 1992 Monthly Timetable Booklets for Berlin Tempelhof and Berlin Tegel Airports, Berlin Airport Company, West Berlin, 1981, 1984, 1990, 1992
  7. Kompass - various editions, Dan Air Services Ltd., West Berlin, 1976-1986
  8. Berlin Airport Company, October 1974 Monthly Timetable Booklet for Berlin Tempelhof and Berlin Tegel Airports, Berlin Airport Company, West Berlin, 1974
  9. Berlin Airport Company, April 1980 Monthly Timetable Booklet for Berlin Tempelhof and Berlin Tegel Airports, Berlin Airport Company, West Berlin, 1980
  10. Berlin Airport Company, April 1981 Monthly Timetable Booklet for Berlin Tempelhof and Berlin Tegel Airports, Berlin Airport Company, West Berlin, 1981
  11. Berlin Airport Company, October 1987 Monthly Timetable Booklet for Berlin Tempelhof and Berlin Tegel Airports, Berlin Airport Company, West Berlin, 1987
  12. Berlin Airport Company, April 1974 Monthly Timetable Booklet for Berlin Tempelhof and Berlin Tegel Airports, Berlin Airport Company, West Berlin, 1974
  13. Berlin Airport Company, November 1978 and January 1984 Monthly Timetable Booklets for Berlin Tempelhof and Berlin Tegel Airports, Berlin Airport Company, West Berlin, 1978 and 1984
  14. Berlin Airport Company, April 1989 Monthly Timetable Booklets for Berlin Tempelhof and Berlin Tegel Airports, Berlin Airport Company, West Berlin, 1989
  15. ^ Berlin Airport Company - Summary of 1974 Annual Report, February 1975 Monthly Timetable Booklet for Berlin Tempelhof and Berlin Tegel Airports, Berlin Airport Company, West Berlin, 1975
  16. Berlin Airport Company, September and October 1975 Monthly Timetable Booklets for Berlin Tempelhof and Berlin Tegel Airports, Berlin Airport Company, West Berlin, 1975

References

  • Berlin Airport Company - Monthly Timetable Booklet for Berlin Tempelhof and Berlin Tegel Airports, several issues (German language edition only), 1968-1992. West Berlin, Germany: Berlin Airport Company.
  • In Flight - Dan-Air's English language in-flight magazine (Special Silver Jubilee Edition), 1978. London, UK: Dan Air Services Ltd.
  • Kompass - Dan-Air's German language in-flight magazine, various copies 1975-1990. West Berlin, Germany: Dan Air Services Ltd.
  • Simons, Graham M. (1993). The Spirit of Dan-Air. Peterborough, UK: GMS Enterprises. ISBN 1-8703-8420-2.
  • Eglin, Roger, and Ritchie, Berry (1980). Fly me, I'm Freddie. London, UK: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 0-2977-7746-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

External links

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