air traffic
Both railways are now used at BER Airport
An Airbus A 320 neo of the airline EgyptAir takes off in front of the backdrop of the tower from the south runway at Berlin Brandenburg Airport “Willy Brandt”. Photo: Soeren Stache / dpa-Zentralbild / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The capital’s airport was often criticized as being too small. Then came the pandemic, and BER had only one runway. Now that’s changing.
A good year after the opening of the new BER airport, regular flights from both runways will begin on Wednesday for the first time.
So far, the planes have only used one of the runways, most recently on a monthly basis. The reason was the collapse in passenger numbers in the Corona crisis.
In the past few months, significantly more passengers have flown from the new airport. The operator expects twice as many take-offs and landings by March than last winter. So it will be between 3000 and 4600 a month.
The one-way operation worked well operationally, said airport boss Aletta von Massenbach. “We were able to reduce our expenses and still manage the number of flight movements, which has increased since the summer, well.” Now both tracks would be needed again. This also ensures more stable operation in winter weather.
The company announced the two-lane operation at the beginning of November. It is not yet possible to predict whether the fourth wave of the Corona crisis will have a stronger impact on passenger numbers in winter.