Autumn holidays start with chaos at German airports

Big problems at BER
Queues and missed flights: Autumn holidays start with chaos at the airports

Travelers are queuing in front of the security check at the Berlin-Brandenburg airport

© Christoph Soeder / Picture Alliance

If you wanted to fly far away at the weekend, you needed a stable nerve costume. Sometimes there was chaos at German airports, and some even missed their take-offs.

Long lines, missed flights and loads of angry people. Many who wanted to fly into the distance at the weekend saw themselves exposed to chaos – especially at Berlin-Brandenburg Airport (BER). Videos were already circulating on social media on Saturday showing people waiting across the check-in halls. Some even missed their departure. There was also a lot going on at other airports, in Frankfurt and Hamburg.

On Sunday the situation at BER Airport in Schönefeld was more relaxed than on Saturday, but there were again angry and frustrated passengers, some of whom had to wait more than two hours for check-in or even missed their plane. “My plane to Frankfurt is gone,” said Günther Ziemer. He waited two hours, then the plane took off without him. Check-in was not going fast enough. The Berliner, who wanted to travel on to Dubai, complained about “chaotic conditions”.

Bottlenecks at the check-ins

“Everyone works hard and does their job as best they can,” said the airport on Saturday. It is becoming noticeable that more and more vaccinated people now want to go on vacation again. According to the spokesman, the reason for the long queues was bottlenecks at the check-ins. In Corona times, the processes would take significantly longer, for example because of the control of vaccination passports. The airport spokesman appealed to travelers: “Be there two hours early.” When checking in, holidaymakers should have their papers and vaccination card to hand immediately to keep waiting times short.

The operator of Frankfurt Airport, Fraport, took a similar approach. Because of the many special corona regulations, he recommended careful travel preparation and “keep all necessary documents to hand at all times”. Frankfurt Airport also had a large number of visitors at the start of the autumn break in Hesse. The terminals are well filled, there may be occasional waiting times, it said on Saturday.

At Cologne / Bonn Airport, however, the start of the vacation in North Rhine-Westphalia went without any major problems, according to a spokesman.

tpo / dpa

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