GERMANY. As the opening of Berlin Brandenburg Airport Terminal 1 nears on 31 October, Schönefeld Airport has been renamed BER Terminal 5, with its airport code changing from SXF.
With the opening of the new airport at the end of the month, all flight operations serving the German capital will be concentrated at a single airport. The existing facilities at Schönefeld Airport will continue to operate, while Berlin Tegel will close from 7 November.
Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg CEO Engelbert Lütke Daldrup said: “As of today, the official IATA code BER stands for Berlin Brandenburg Airport Willy Brandt. Moreover, these three letters also stand for the German capital city and region, as well as for all of eastern Germany. From now on, the three-letter code BER will represent them on flights all over the world. 30 years after the reunification of Germany, BER also stands for the end of the fragmentation of air traffic into several locations and for a transformed metropolitan region.”
At a small reception at the weekend with political and business representatives, the previous lettering on the roof of the terminal building was handed over to the Municipality of Schönefeld. The new lettering, BER Terminal 5, was then officially inaugurated.
Lütke Daldrup added: “SXF is now BER. The modernised SXF terminals have been given a new lease of life. As BER Terminal 5, the completely renovated Schönefeld Airport will ensure the necessary additional capacities for the next few years to reliably handle flight operations at BER. Schönefeld will thus remain a central part of the airport.”
A total of 17 airlines, including Ryanair and Wizz Air, will operate from T5 when the airport opens. The terminal can handle 8-10 million passengers a year, with capacity across the airport (T1, T2 and T5) over 40 million a year.
Between the opening of Terminal 1 and the closing of Tegel, all airlines will relocate to Berlin Brandenburg Airport in stages. The first T1 arrivals from easyJet and Lufthansa will land on 31 October, with the first departures a day later. Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines will be among the first to move from Tegel to the new T1.
On 4 November Eurowings and Vueling will cease departures from Tegel, and instead move to Terminal 1. On the evening before, the first flights from Eurowings will land at T1. Ryanair, SunExpress and Sundair will relocate to Terminal 5, while Belavia, Georgian Airways, Egyptair and Norwegian will move to T1.
In the third and final relocation wave, the following airlines will also begin operating at BER Terminal 1: Aegean Airlines, Aer Lingus, airBaltic, Air France, Air Malta, Air Serbia, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Brussels Airlines, Danish Air Transport, Finnair, Iberia Express, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, Luxair, SAS, Swiss and TAP Portugal.
T1 will house 120 shops, restaurants and service units, spanning more than 20,000sq m. The heart of the commercial zone will be a 9,000sq m marketplace airside, with 2,000sq m allocated to F&B in this zone, and featuring a strong flavour of the Berlin region. In the T1 non-Schengen area, around 1,400sq m is allocated to retail, restaurants and services. Landside, commercial accounts for around 4,000sq m of space.
Gebr Heinemann will be the main travel retailer at the location.
