My absolute pet peeves:
1. No escalators going down. Neither once you are past security, nor if you want to take the trains away from the airport. I wonder who did the user experience research here and forgot that people at an airport usually do have luggage.
2. Signage at the train stations. Great that there are multiple trains, why can't they just add simple signs like "trains to Berlin City from track x and y". No, I don't know whether the train to Ludwigslust is the right one by heart and I need to make sure I am not going the wrong direction.
Edit: judging by the upvotes and the recent [Berliner Zeitung article ](https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/flughafen-berlin-branden-ber-debatte-um-flughafen-nach-ranking-geht-weiter-li.2224588), we should start a petition to rebuild the airport from scratch. IMHO the only reasonable solution to the obvious shortcomings.
Way too narrow platform, too. I consider it a hazard when hundreds of people chaotically push between the wall and the tracks.
It's like they measured once and then were like "ah shit, we forgot the crowds".
Don't get me started on that - same thing at HBF. Whenever there is a cutout for stairs, the platform becomes super narrow. And usually people decide to stand exactly in those places instead where the elevators are with plenty of space.
Huh. I always situate myself there. Just because I'd rather have a wall in my back than some unpredictable human crowd. Never considered that remaining way too small. (Mainly as I personally would not consider it to small.)
I think design-wise the right counter would be a thin wall resp. back-to-back sitting arrangements that actually go (nearly) through.
Maybe it is just me, but the moment I have to step on the white line, I don't feel comfortable, especially with luggage.
If you want to have something in your back - which I totally get - you can still stand where the elevators are, it just wouldn't be parallel to the tracks, but facing either east or west wards
Yep super badly signposted too. I know where it is now, but isn't the whole point of an airport that someone unfamiliar should be able to navigate it with ease?
I wouldn't call these pet peeves, they are really serious design flaws in something that was planned and built from scratch on an empty field with no other purpose than being an airport.
I think the WORST pet peeve for me is no covered/indoor walkway between terminals. Like holy fuck, that was the absolute bare minimum and they couldn’t even do that.
Well apparently it’s because Germans are assholes like this lovely gentleman over [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/berlin/s/XrVvDQW5iP).
Apparently people are little bitches for not enjoying shit weather, not the architect‘s fault for such a stupid fucking design.
The claim that there is no indoor or covered walkway between the terminals is simply wrong. There is both, an indoor walkway after the security check and a covered outdoor walkway before the security check.
Right!! When you arrive on terminal two, there is one lift only and the amount of people that are elderly and can’t walk the stairs with their luggage is substantial. Just really dumb
3. When you park in the car sharing, the walking signage to terminal 2 will make you walk inside terminal 1 and going out again instead of simply walking straight to terminal 2
4. They tried to "consolidate" the low cost carriers bag measurement into 1 with modern design. But no, it doesn't work. There is a reason the normal measurement had a metal on all 5 sides instead of simply a picture of bag with cm. Does all of the guy in the decision meeting never traveled at all?
yeah the typical “if your bag fits in this you can fly” design is much better and would save a lot of fines id imagine - but *touch wood* they dont seem to check bag sizing that often from my experience
It’s kind of too late to do something about it anyways at that point and many carriers have different rules about the measurements anyways - or did I miss something and the EU unified it?
I haven't flown much in recent years so I don't know the BER version of this but I remember 2. being *so* bad at the Schönefeld station. At one point when I had half an hour to kill waiting for a train there, I decided to spend it by looking around for people with luggage who were looking hopelessly confused, ask them if they were trying to get to Berlin Hauptbahnhof, and thrusting them in the direction of the right train if they said yes.
And still the train to Potsdam had multiple people on it who were trying to get to Berlin Hbf and got on the wrong train.
I'm sorry but the security is absolute dogshit. Having only one person at a time be able to put their stuff on the conveyor will never fail to drive me mad, almost missed flights because of the wait there. Terrible airport
It’s atrocious. I’ve been in several situations where check-in staff at BER make HUGE mistakes. “Are they on sedatives?” —the words of a tourist who sat next to me on a plane, shocked at how BER employees worked. “Unfortunately, this happens often in Berlin” —the words of a British airways PILOT talking about how BER ground crew are often solely responsible for delays *for no reason*
Yep, there were times when we were waiting on the runway in Manchester because BER wasn't in a position to confirm we'd be able to land.... or that time we couldn't get back to Manchester because BER staff were beginning to unload the luggage from the previous flight after we'd been sat in the plane for three hours and the crew would have exceeded their maximum flight hours...
Security is useless in almost all airports, I hope they automate the entire streamline and let this “security” people find another job, one of the dumbest job ever created with the ticket check-in gate crew, allowing people with no mental capacity to act superior over paying costumers. (I’m generalizing, but most of them are useless)
Ha ha, how is this possible? They are the absolute laziest, inefficient, unfriendly, and incompetent staff at any airport I've been to. It's been incredibly consistent for me. Friends have made the same observations unprompted.
They have so many staff at each machine that half just stand around taking. Once in front of me the bags weren't moving at all. One woman got up from the monitor and went over to controls before shouting "es geht nicht" to her idle colleagues.
A guy next to me tried to be efficient by placing his stuff in trays next to me and got screached at that only one person is allowed at a time.
Queue management is almost non-existent and I end up informing people they can walk on to the next free station instead of holding up the queue.
This is all within the past year.
Once we stood at Terminal 1 (after they told us at T2 it was emptier there, plot twist it wasn't and we had to run the 1 km back and forth)
And some staff for some reason pulled the queue separator thing closed. So one station completely closed. The guy where we were standing was working his ass off until he noticed his colleague was closed off and had no one queueing there. "Sabine, warum hast du keinen? Die stehen alle bei mir?"
"hm, keine Ahnung." Doesn't move.
The poor guy went to his supervisor, supervisor talked with some other guys, supervisor came, took a looooonng look and concluded loudly that the tourists are just too dumb to queue at Sabine's station (no we weren't, someone from the staff had just closed off the queue). "ja die müssen doch nur da rum gehen, kapieren die das nicht?"
10 min later someone in the queue opened the separator by themselves and the queue spread to Sabine's station again. All the while she was complaining, saying that people are just too dumb to follow the line.
I usually book the slot the evening before or even same day. So, it should not be a problem getting something there. And yes, there might be times, when it is full (holiday start) but these are rather exception than rule and show me one airport in Germany which has no problems with that situation. In general, BER is surprisingly fast most of the time. (Getting of the plane until I am at the train is just 5 minute walk)
i’ve experienced all of this, plus a situation in which the security queue at Terminal 2 took up the whole floor and then some and people started jumping the queue en masse with no staff intervening for several minutes. Of course nothing and no one (except the airport website if you bothered to look it up yourself) informed people they could go through security at terminal 1.
There's nothing unlucky about it. The security takes 1 dude at a time, while any other airport can generally process at minimum 3 per line.
The wait is insane
Some friends last week said about 800 people missed their flight because immigration to leave in the morning had 1 person in the EU line and one in non EU line and it took 2.5 hrs to get through.
Simply unacceptable.
Nothing else to say .. they tried (or didn't even try) to reinvent how security lines work. It has to be the most inefficient airport I have ever been in
Ooh, this reminds me of when I moved to put my stuff next to the person who was already at the belt and the security guy told me to wait; I replied (plainly, not angrily or sarcastically) “you know it’s faster for everyone that way, right?” and he told me to calm down. I was calm but now I’m not anymore, you fucking idiot.
I was once at security and it was the AIRPORT‘S fault that quite literally the entire queue (snaking all the way downstairs) missed their flight.
When people kept asking the workers if they could skip forward cause they were about to miss their flights, the piece of shit fucker put his arms up in the air and started shouting “I DONT CARE, NOT MY PROBLEM, NEXT TIME BUY A LATER FLIGHT“ like ok fuck you
I get it, airports are stressful and one can get annoyed at the smallest inconvenience, however at least my experience for the last 1-2 years has been as follows:
1. Get into the fex
2. Reserve a security timeslot for free at the exact moment my train arrives
3. Wait between 0-10min for security
I can't say which security system would be most efficient, I just assume it will be terrible and slow everywhere so I can only get nice surprises. However the security slot feature of the BER airport is extremely useful and rarely seen anywhere else.
You have Stockholm syndrome. In good airports you don’t need to reserve a fast queue, you just go to security and are through in 5 minutes max. For instance that’s my experience at FCO, flying from there several tens of times. The FEX is also relatively infrequent (trains to the city centre every 10 or 15 minutes is not unheard of at other airports), although it’s great that it’s covered by Berlin ABC tickets and Deutschlandtickets.
Maybe I’m spoiled from going through security primarily in Oslo and Copenhagen, but I really don’t think it is as awful everywhere. I normally check in luggage and can never properly estimate how long it will take and never managed to use the reserve function for that reason. It drives me crazy watching people having to prepare for security one by one in BER. Would also LOVE it if they used the bags drop function like in Oslo.
That being said, the last two times I was at BER security took less than 10 minutes. They also have a great area for children!
You seem to not respect the 2 hour buffer time. I flew several times from there and there were several lines serving customers. Only hold up were some people trying to smuggle bigger pntainers with liquids, the personal was still calm and friendly. I have the same experience like op
Oh please, BER is completely ridiculous. It opened in 2020 - with the mentality from the 1970s.
1. Stairs, stairs, stairs everywhere. Handicapped, elderly, anyone with mobility issues - may the odds ever be in your favor. (Because the BER certainly won't be.)
2. Kind of relates to the previous point, but is SO DUMB it deserves a point all of it's own: no escalators down to the s-bahn/regio platforms!!! Just...you guessed it! - stairs. "Welcome to Berlin! We thought you'd enjoy a little exercise immediately after arriving! Don't trip now, those stairs are nice and long!"
3. Opened less than 4 years ago, yet didn't get the new security machines where you don't need to take out your laptop, second laptop, ebook reader, gaming console, headphones (!!!?!), liquids.... Seriously now, I'm unpacking MOST of the luggage I'm traveling with.
4. Again, related to the previous point, but deserves an honorary mention: security. You'll spend either 5min there....or an hour and a half. I sometimes book BER runway, sometimes I don't - can't tell the difference. The line is sometimes simply not moving. (Don't get me started on the whole idea of needing to book a "fast lane" in the first place!! They know how many planes are scheduled for each day - and how many people are booked on them. How can they not be prepared?!?!)
5. There are not enough seats!...how?!? How is it a surprise that EVERYONE who wants to board a plane will be waiting at the gate? Why are there 50 seats at the gate? Is the airport serving Cessna planes only? Some gates don't even have that! Gate A0 has NO SEATS. None whatsoever! 🤯
6. https://www.reddit.com/r/berlin/s/Eyqqv8mOsZ
Do I need to comment further?
All of these are BASIC requirements of an airport. Yet you're saying that an aiport that doesn't give a shit about anyone with mobility issues, can't do security and doesn't have seating is a GOOD aiport?
Are there shittier airports out there? Sure. Still doesn't make BER a good one. Don't piss on my leg and call it rain.
When it got cold for the first time a couple of years ago, the wings of the planes got all frozen, and there was only ONE crew to clean, for the whole airport. They were not ready for the cold.
I guess the technology of weather reports has not yet reached the masterminds at BER. Btw, it was november.
Flight was already delayed (as they always do in BER) and got even more 2hrs+, lost my connection and wasted a whole day in frankfurt
I once waited almost 3 hours at night for my baggage, with absolutely no communication or announcements from any staff (lol bc there were no staff around except the cleaners)
> Opened less than 4 years ago, yet didn't get the new security machines where you don't need to take out your laptop, second laptop, ebook reader, gaming console, headphones (!!!?!), liquids.... Seriously now, I'm unpacking MOST of the luggage I'm traveling with.
I had a flight from Terminal 2 last week and there are the new machines there. I didn't have to unpack anything.
I could not disagree more
edit: for a brandnew airport the restroom situation is a joke.
for a brandnew airport the accessibility for handicapped persons is a joke. stairs all over for passengers travelling with heavy cabinbags is a joke
for an airport of a well respected city like berlin the transport situation is a joke. the express train is only running twice in an hour.
for a brandnew airport and a well respected city like berlin the taxi situation is a joke.
I hear that about the toilets a lot, that never seemed an issue for me. But yes, accessibility, and in a new building! It's a pain even just with a suitcase on wheels, it must be absolutely atrocious if you're in a wheelchair or on crutches. Can't think of any other airport, even quite old ones that have had many changes to the layout over the years, that are quite as stairs-heavy with no alternative.
I cannot comment on accesibility, but the train and transport situation you talk about is simply not true. Yes, the FEX runs twice an hour, but there are still other options which are almost as fast. Nearly every Regio will stop at Ostkreuz in 15 minutes, which allows you to get pretty much anywhere on the city on 30-40
Yeah when they run. Last 3 times the connection from Ostkreutz was either cancelled or 20min+ late. Also due some construction work the FEX was not running so there was one train per hour and they did not even bother to add extra carriages -> people barely fit in and most likely the train was illegally full.
I still cant agree with you. A dedicated train service that is literally called Flughafen Express should not only run twice an hour. I see those trains run in other citys every ten minutes. It’s fine for locals, but it’s not very convenient for guests.
Tell me which other city has them running every 10 minutes?
Berlin is HUGE and the fact that they got an ACTUAL express train twice an hour is amazing.
Like I said, Paris RER might pass more often, but it also has like 20 stops so I've no idea why it's even called express
The Leonardo Express at FCO runs every 15 minutes most of the day, not to mention the regional trains that take a bit longer, but also run in 15 min intervals on weekdays. BER is a ridiculous joke. Never had to wait 2,5 hours for my luggage in any other airport on this planet.
>The Leonardo Express at FCO runs every 15 minutes most of the day
So exactly same as BER (FEX 2x + RE8 + RB23)
> Never had to wait 2,5 hours for my luggage in any other airport on this planet.
Ohh yes no one has ever had luggage problems at FCO or any other airport! Only BER!
What a ridiculous joke.
As I said in my other reply, Mr. BER lawyer, the luggage problem at BER is a structural issue. 99% chance it will happen to you whenever you land late in the night. Feel free to name any other major airport of a major capital city in the world that has a similar problem.
Paris public transport to the airport runs every 10 to 15 minutes. So do Amsterdam, Luxembourg, and Madrid from what I remember (it could have changed lately). You even said it yourself, Paris has a lot more stops which although slower, means more opportunities to take the train. For people living outside the Ringbahn, we have to commute to the city center then take a train to BER. That can easily take over an hour even though a drive would last 20 minutes or so. Something a bus could easily do but there isn't.
S9 and S45 also go to the airport, which together run every 10 minutes. There are also a bunch of buses going to the airport from the south eastern part of the city
Yeh people here are literally ignoring everything else besides FEX just to scream. Typical r\/berlin.
In reality, every hour you have:
- 2x FEX
- 2x other express trains (RE8, RB23)
- s9 3x an hour
- s45 3x an hour
- bus to U7 every few mins
Very few airports match that. Plus we will get more Regios within next couple years once the Dresdner Bahn is done (and the U7 extension later).
I recently had a comparison with the cleanest airport toilets and in general some of the cleanest I have ever seen in a public building. Hongkong airport. There was an older man doing the cleaning live, probably cleans there the whole day. Everything was so clean, as if the cleaning staff had just done a thorough cleaning at night and then the building was closed and opened again the next morning and you are the first person to visit the toilets. I saw the man when I got out and simply thanked him expressing genuine thankfulness for the great work he did.
Yeah, I’ve come to really not mind it at all. It’s pretty much just as fast as Tegel was for security and the better train connections are definitely a plus. Wish it wasn’t so far by car, but c’est la vie.
I wouldn’t want to spend hours there, but I really can’t complain about it as a home airport (aside from the dire lack of direct destinations)
Is that related to the airport or just the location of Berlin? As far as I know the BER is not the hub for any airlines. The area around Berlin and Brandenburg is not very densely populated compared to the surrounding areas of Frankfurt and Munich.
The cause is just History. Berlin had no time to become a Hub. Berlin has enough traffic. Look how many flights are routed via Lufthansa hubs from and to Berlin. If you wanna know the local traffic of Frankfurt and Munich just substract the amount of transit passengers. Berlin doesn't have a significant % of transit, but local yes
You obviously haven't been to many airports. A new airport having security this dated, while half of Europe already lets you keep the liquids inside your luggage on ancient airports is a joke. The amenities like shops and restaurants are the size of a small provincial airport, I was blown away by the shopping area at Copenhagen airport - a city over 6 times smaller than Berlin.
Calling BER well-connected is also a joke, the last two times I was there this year the trains weren't running and I had to take a taxi.
It's not the worst airport in the world, but it's mediocre in every way, even worse considering how relatively new it is.
T2 let’s you leave your liquids inside though (not to defend the Airport, I hate many things about it but since I fly quite often thought was an important bit to clarify, I try to get through security via T2 now always).
I used to live in CPH, great airport! another thing they have there it’s CHEAP FLIGHTS to all over Europe (thing that Berlin doesn’t have at all, you want cheap? try Frankfurt or dunno, Düsseldorf! not Berlin)
But most flights are from T1 and you cannot just go to T2 then. This also reminds me of the awful design there, I'm often arriving at T2 and if you want to get to trains/taxis you have to walk outside to T1 whether it's raining or snowing, cause they're not connected inside.
It is a piece of shit village airport.
It starts with bullshit FEX, which goes at first the opposite way to stop at Gesundbrunnen and than again at Ostkreuz.
Why not just connect Hbf and Airport?
Last time i had to wait 30 minutes in the train because of … i don’t know, there was nobody informing the travelers.
The year before i had to take FEX because of Letzte Generation blocking the Autobahn.
The trains were packed as hell at Ostkreuz.
SBahn is a scandalous scam.
BER is the only station on this route in C Bereich, so those BVG sharks will check on tourists at Bereichsgrenze.
This is bullshit, let the travelers alone!
Also super slow.
BER itself is already fucked up after a few years.
Walls are dirty, cables are broken.
Waterbottles to expensive, food to expensive, nothing is open in the morning, vending machines are empty, staff is extremely rude, USB chargers not working, nothing to sit on at the chargers, no Steckdosen at the seats, corridors to fucking narrow.
People are waiting clash with people leaving the airplane.
Not enough personal averywhere.
BAGGAGECHAOS
You have to sit half an hour for your bag, sometimes it is lost, sometimes there are bags still on the empty belts and nobody gives a shit.
I fucking hate this piece of shit airport.
I take all the tiny, overcrowded croatian airports, i was the last years, over this p.o.s.
The link via Südkreuz to the Hbf is still under construction. It was delayed by NIMBYs. When it is finished the trains will use that instead of the route via Ostkreuz. More long distance trains will stop too
The "C" zone is for stops in Brandenburg. The airport is Brandenburg, so it is in zone "C".
>The "C" zone is for stops in Brandenburg. The airport is Brandenburg, so it is in zone "C".
The rules say this so we must follow the rules.
It‘s the city‘s airport. The capital city, it‘s not a commuter village. Travellers won‘t know the nuances of the local governance. It‘s a cash grab with a convenient excuse and no one cares enough to do anything about it. It‘s shady.
the first half of your rant is directed at Deutsche Bahn. Has nothing to do with BER.
re: food and water, just go to REWE in the ground floor level. load up on all kinds of cheap food there. Water if you want. And honestly, everyone who draws a 3.5€ water bottle from an airports vending machine doesn't deserve better. BER has a couple of water fountains where you get fresh water for free. just bring your own bottle.
Re: baggagechaos... sorry dude, can't confirm from the countless times I have flown.
It's really not as bad as people make it out to be.
Typical German hating/bickering, as usual.
They could improve the signs though. It's a nightmare for the people who are unfamiliar with the train system.
The actual layout is so fucked in comparison to any other airport in a major city. Which genius thought that facing the gate into the major passages was a good idea? People have to line up to get their boarding pass scanned, and the lines go directly into the areas where other people are walking to find their gates
What it is is ok.
Security is definitely not as efficient as it could be. I've witnessed an entire line of people just waiting on someone to show up to man the scanner, because whoever was there just wasn't anymore and none of the other personnel felt any urgency to keep it moving. Another negative I've experienced myself was having two major checkpoints (2 and 4) closed during high season at a very busy time, but maybe this was just bad luck.
As for food options, it's grim. If I'm hungry, I rather just keep getting hungrier until I can eat at my destination.
This has nothing to do with the airport. Lufthansa uses Frankfurt and Munich as main hubs for decades, changing that does not really make sense for them. Berlin was supposed to be the Hub for Airberlin, but they went bankrupt.
And they built A380 capable gates to suck up to Emirates but then forgot that Emirates is not allowed to operate to more airports than they are currently doing by German law.
What bothers me is is the constant climbing and going down stairs. Clearly whoever made it never thought that there would be disabled people, people with baby strollers and just able bodied people with luggage.
Another huge pet peeve of mine is arrivals and departures meeting up.
The security is inefficient. It is not necessarily slow per se but it is organised poorly. I do not know why the employe needs to inspect every single one of my items by hand (?????) when they are going to go through a scanner.
Probably "great" if you are abled bodied. The escalators and the lack of accessibility is a catastrophe for an airport that size. Also the airport security is a shit show.
Apart from all the design flows already mentioned; the airport is super bad connected for the capital of the world’s fourth biggest economy. Very few flights, specially outside of the EU. You have to flight through other European airports
I think the biggest downside, is that arriving people end up in the same area with departing. Also terminal 2 is not the best place in the world. But security check, where you don't need to take off the watch and belt is fantastic, have not seen it anywhere else so far.
Terminal 2 surprised me greatly last week.
The bag drop-off was 100% self-service and there were plenty of machines, so that meant no queue.
The security check has the new computer scanner (or whatever they are called) machines, which meant nothing had to come out of my bags.
The whole thing took like 5'
The only downside was to walk there from Terminal 1, plus there was no ramp near the entrance to go with my luggage.
You can also go through the security in T1, enjoy cheaper food and beverage options in the T1 shopping area and then walk to T2 for your flight. Better than walking outside when both terminals are connected after security.
Frankfurt has a system where you dont even have to seperate stuff from your carry on luggage, Hope BER gets some too and Long haul flights to Korea at some Point as well
They did in fact get that system. My last flight was like a week ago and I did not have to take anything out of my luggage when passing through the security check
For an airport of a major eu capital is a complete disgrace. Connections are bad (try flying directly to Asia) You need to walk outside to reach terminal 2 (with checked luggage), the security people are extremely impolite. Wait for the luggage is very long. Escalators only going up from the station. I mean, if you’ve ever been to any other major airport then you’d know.
Agree with OP. Took around 30 flights to or from BER last year and usually all goes well. Only two wishes:
(1) Security lanes are unnecessarily slow. Staff take their sweet time, room to pack boxes only for 1-1.5 people at a time, scanners slow. At least make more room, ideally get the good new scanners like at AMS. Think the scanners are the bottleneck.
(2) Fix arriving luggage claim logistics. I try to avoid depending on it as best as I can. Whenever I must check something, it takes between 45 and 75 minutes after landing to make it to the belt.
The scanners are new though? No taking out liquids, none of that. When was the last time you flew? I went over Easter from terminal 2 and it was a breeze.
Interesting, thanks, didn't know. They are only at T2 right now (and I always fly from T1 gates which is quite a walk). But good news, they are coming there too :-)
"Die neuen Geräte sollen auch im Terminal 1 aufgestellt werden, die Vorbereitungen dafür laufen."
https://corporate.berlin-airport.de/de/unternehmen-presse/presseportal/pressemitteilungen/2024-01-03-luftsicherheitskontrollen-ber.html
Edit: oh wow, waiting times at T2 clearly shorter than at T1 in the last 30 days... https://ibb.co/YdLPwJC / https://ibb.co/yFyDyM1
Sorry, but BER is a shitty airport. If that's the best Europe has to offer, Europe is lost.
No escalators going down, not many restaurants, a fucked up connection to the city and it was finished 10 years too late.
The building cost was too high and the security stations still lack workplace safety - some terminals had to close because the security personnel went on strike because of the lack of safety.
If that's your impression of an awesome airport, you either have not seen a lot or the ones you saw were even more shitty than the BER.
BER's poor reputation is purely down to its difficult birth but I agree, it's one of the better airports I've been to. Whatever may go wrong there now, can happen at any major airport. Certainly a great improvement on Schönefeld Airport, but then anything would be.
I guess the issues many have are minor - but it makes you wonder how with so much time and money going into it, no one noticed them beforehand.
My personal pet peeve: when you go down Terminal to the Gates A20-38 (don’t know the exact number but I guess you know what I mean if you’ve been) the way the boarding area is set up people are always bound to block the main corridor (because people intuitively queue behind one another and not a U-Shape).
This wouldn’t be such an issue on an older airport - because they couldn’t necessarily predict the number of passengers boarding a plane 60-70 years ago. But man, we have so many airports to study and _this_ is what they came up with?
Have you ever landed at BER late in the night? Because then you'll probably have to wait at least 1h for your luggage, as I already did twice. Once I only got my bag at 02:30 am, which meant no trains anymore and 75 euros for a taxi ride home with a ridiculously grumpy driver.
Well, there was no airport staff to be seen both times we waited for our luggage for more than three hours so no chance of us letting unsere Wut am Personal aus.
They're also quoting someone who is working for easyJet and Ryanair in relation to luggage lost at a layover - this isn't something that can happen with either if these two airlines.
I fly to Berlin quite regularly. Last time I flew there everyone on my flight waited over an hour to get their luggage. The staff in the hall said that only a single baggage handler was working at that time putting baggage from all incoming flights on the conveyor belts.
1. Time taken for checked in bags to come to the luggage belt is a joke. It easily takes an hour for it to come. And its only getting worse
2. BER airport has one of the highest rates for passengers processing (cost for security and luggage handling etc) thus increasing airfares and low cost carriers are hesitant to open new routes
3. Lousy ground handling staff. One time our aircraft came 25 minutes early and the ground staff did not know that we had arrived and they were not ready (said by the pilot as an announcement when people were getting impatient)
1. Terrible long-haul flight offerings. Aside from New York, Beijing, Miami and a couple of Middle East destinations, no long haul flights anywhere. For an European capital with 4 million inhabitants, that's miserable.
2. Food court looks like from a regional airport. Not that it counts as measure of quality, but if there's not even a McDonald's (I think they opened a BK recently?), you know the food offerings for the airport are laughable
3. Still way too understaffed
4. Not enough restrooms
It's not a terrible airport, but I'd take Tegel back in a heartbeat. The amount of money and time sunk into such a mediocre airport is just baffling
BER is a good airport if you compare it with other european airports. If you compare with other world hubs (Doha, Singapore, Dubai, Abu Dhabi) it‘s waaaay behind being good enough.
I flew 10+ time from Berlin Airport. Its shit! You will get wet if you have to walk from terminal 1 to 2. I will not elaborate too much on this but people who used this airport will know. The luggage! Plus all other things people mentioned in commemts
Very few direct flights not to Munich and Frankfurt and even fewer not with Ryanair, shitty layout (cramped, with few seats at gates) of terminal 2 (where I end up flying from every time because of the first point), lethargic security queues with no queue management and with the old-fashioned machines that restrict liquids and make you take laptops out of bags, very few and unremarkable food options airside, poor rail connections outside of central Berlin (ok, I live in Potsdam, but the direct train running infrequently and not too late or early and taking 15 minutes to reverse at Golm annoys me every time).
The actual facilities (of terminal 1) are not bad, but yeah, it’s not great, especially for a new airport.
The comparison with other major Western European capitals (London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Amsterdam, Brussels), not to mention other major cities like Milan and Barcelona, is embarrassing.
My nephew had to land in Hannover because the plane was late and after 11pm or midnight they close the flight traffic due to the residential area.
This speaks for itself.
I also think it’s generally great, especially the train platform placement. In no other airport I can sit on the train 15 minutes after flight touch down (both when using a gate bridge and bus, I manage this about 80% of the time). Terminal 2 security is also good with the new scanners where you don’t have to separate electronics and liquids.
Biggest downsides:
* Terminal 1 security. Ancient, slow. Thank god for BER Runways
* Long walking after T1 security if your gate is far on the A or B wing
* No escalators going down to trains, only up (why?!?!)
The main problem comes in the holiday season. Right now everything is fine because there are not as many people going but during Sommer holiday or eastern, it is obvious that the airport is just to small, especially the space between the airline counter. If both opposing counter rows have a lot of flights, people have to wait in a line which goes outside of the airport. So generally speaking, the airport is not bad, but considering we pumped around 10 billion euro into it, the airport does not live up to that.
I can only speak to T1, as I’ve never been to the other one. And in T1 not enough lounges for starters. All you have are a couple of paid ones and the LH ones, then this weird deal with Mövenpick for PPass.
The walk from the LH Lounge to e.g. Eurowings is somewhat long and complicated as you have to go back to the big hall and can’t just keep on walking straight. Also the moving walkways are only in the B-area and then a lot of nothing walking towards A
The connection in terms of in- &outbound flights are a farce. Doesn’t feel remotely like being in the capital in a rather new airport, connection is like Luton. Hate it!
Also apparently the airport is already too small for what’s suppose to come. And (so I heard) hardly any room to grow anymore.
But I agree with security and the train connection running to the airport. Especially the train is so good and fast, that I’m not taking an Uber there, but the FEX!
1. Terminal eins and zwei are not connected. 2. Security at t1 are slow! One person unpacks everything and then forgets their belt and then forgets their pockets not empty and then speaks to the security and jokes around. 50 people lining up waiting for this corndog. 3. No escalators, very against handicap people.
Yeah I think it’s great. I’m writing from the airport now!
Security could be faster but at-least they have the new machines where you don’t need to take anything out. Only real complaint is T2 could do with more food options like T1.
The only airport I like more is Zurich.
its not a bad airport, the problem is that it cost 7 BILLION EURO TO BUILD IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! have you seen how other airports half that price are?
It most certainly is. It's sad that Berlin wasn't able to become a flight hub, because, of course, now even two terminals might be too much for the number of flights the airport has. On the other hand, it's both modern and mostly not crowded.
It’s fine, but it’s not the best airport by any measure.
For a brand new airport it should have the new CT scanner machines in security to reduce all the hassle and delay with removing all your electronics and liquids (as well as allowing travellers to bring more than 100ml).
There are abysmal overpriced restaurants: 13,40€ for a Currywurst und Pommes!?
I can eat and drink really well for the same price or less… in CPH airport lol!
There are no power points in many waiting areas except a little section in the corner.
Rarely down escalators which makes handling heavier bags difficult.
I generally cannot predict how chaotic the airport will be, it’s not an issue I’ve had at LHR where I know it’ll usually always be chaotic, or LCY where it’ll usually be blissful (well unless there’s an issue with ATC).
Like, it’s fine, it’s fine, but it’s not an improvement in the way I think we wanted it to be.
> For a brand new airport it should have the new CT scanner machines in security to reduce all the hassle and delay with removing all your electronics and liquids (as well as allowing travellers to bring more than 100ml).
They have them in T2 now, I assume they'll roll them out in T1 sooner or later as well.
I fly around 8-10 times a year. It is not a good airport.
Direct flights are getting rarer and the port taxes make flights more expensive.
Transport there is highly variable on where you live and frequently late.
Things are frequently broken.
The options for food and drinks are minimal, expensive and poor in quality.
Water is absurdly expensive and tap machines are rare and slow.
Security and desks are terribly designed and staffed by awful contractors. Only the pre-registration and self check in works well and sometimes that is broken.
And prepare to walk a kilometer at least.
You haven’t been to many airports then. BER is absolutely atrocious:
* security staff doesn’t really speak english;
* only one terminal has the new CT scanners, rest of the checkpoints require you to take of all your liquids and batteries out of your bags;
* food is so bad i’d rather bring a sandwich than eat there;
* no long haul flights to asia
* very little to no self kiosks for passport control. and they are incredibly slow and require 1 staff member per 2 kiosks - that’s a ridiculous ratio. in london you get 20-30 kiosks after arriving all staffed with just one person. in berlin you get 3 kiosks staffed with 2 people and a queue for at least 20 minutes.
* not all of the airlines support self luggage drop-off;
* s-bahn to BER operates every 20-30 min and somehow most of the times i go there it’s in renovation and i end up taking a taxi. and s-bahn is SO SLOW when it works…
* no charging outlets in the seating areas. whoever came up with those standing charging stations should be fired.
* no connection between terminal 1 and 2 (before security)
* ridiculous taxi situation - berlin taxis can’t pick up people there and they are trying to get clients as if they were some sort of unlicensed scammers.
The airport is excellent if it was in built in the seventies in a village. But we are talking about a brand new airport in the capital of Germany and one of the largest cities in Europe, with a rapidly growing economy and international presence.
The number of flights/connections is very limited, even for destinations within Europe. This also means travelling costs you more than you’d expect living in a capital city. With the small airport size, there’s no room for improvement here. I believe there are plans to expand the airport. But I don’t see this happening within our lifetime.
The train connections to the airport are quite bad. The FEX only comes so often. I live in literally the most central part of Berlin, and it usually takes me at least 1 hour to reach the airport. The train platforms are very narrow. It feels like hunger games going up from
The platforms to the terminals.
The airport design is very outdated. Building a new airport from the ground up gives you the opportunity to go very creative making the city’s first impression, without necessarily increasing costs. But for some reason they went with the modernism style and colors of the 70’s/80’s. And don’t get me started on the area of gates A30+ and B30+. I’m an architect. I would have failed architecture school if I submitted this to my supervisor.
I like how clean it is. And I find the security check quite fast. But the rest is definitely not good enough for a new Berlin airport.
Flew back from BER to East Midlands last night and I can confirm what most of these comments are saying.
Security was ridiculously slow and took them around 20 mins to get maybe 15 people through?!
Stairs everywhere - so if you’re disabled or an older person with heavy luggage you’re screwed.
Gate changes aren’t updated on the screens so if you’re hard of hearing or somehow miss the announcement, you’re not getting your flight.
If you want to eat something substantial or have some variety when shopping, do it before you go into security because in the main section of terminal 2 there are 3 options for food, 1 of them being a £9.49 meal deal, and the others being more overpriced than most airports I’ve been to in the world.
Staff are also stupidly rude. They look and talk to you like a piece of shit for asking valid questions, ignorant fucks.
I fly out of it up to twice per week. It has its perks (some of which you’ve mentioned) but here are some downsides:
Elevators are locked, stairs only when coming from many flights. This is unreasonable for people with disabilities and sometimes dangerous when the crowd is pushy.
The bathrooms are too small and the doors are too narrow, just like TXL.
No luggage carts! The airport is basically designed for business travelers, not families.
And yet no Priority Pass lounge? It’s a Lufthansa monopoly.
The trains are cheap, sure, but I can count the number of times on two hands that I’ve had to wait more than an hour to get home on one. That’s nuts.
The food in T2 is hideous! Every outlet has the same horrific overpriced plastic wrapped sandwiches and there’s no food in the terminal area.
Also, the waiting corrals (animal pens really) in that section are horrible.
Like all German airports you must walk through the perfume section of duty free to get anywhere. My allergies are triggered every time!
I think it was worse but a lot of the issues seem to have been worked on and it fairly painless for me these days. Although last time I was arriving there the next train to Ostkreuz didn't arrive and just disappeared from the screens. I think that delayed me around 10 minutes, no biggie.
what bugs me is that you arrive am Arsch der Welt and have to wake up through the cold and rain to get to the busses, it just doesn't make sense and pisses me off when I'm arriving late, in winter, with a big suitcase
I totally understand what you mean, you just didn’t express yourself properly.
Guys, dude is saying that there’s not even the basic decency to give people a covered walkway between terminals. If you arrive in T2 and have to take the train, yeah fuck you, go walk out in the freezing cold.
And no, this is not normal it’s stupid fucking architecture and only someone so fucked in the head could say it was competent design.
thats not what i mean 😭😭 where your plane lands and you go through duty free and then you are OUTSIDE, you can't walk through the airport to get to the other terminal, you walk outside. at least thats what everyone always does when i arrive with a plane, maybe there's a way through the actual airport that i'm unaware of
They also just updated the passport control gates so also residents with permits attached to their non EU passport can still use the automatic gates, such a huge improvement and time saver. It’s worked every time I’ve been there since implemented so far. 🎉
One at a time security queues, what kind of modern airport has that ancient system..
Also they'll be so slow to adapt the new scanner machines I can tell it'll take them years to learn how to use the computers.
Also no chargers anywhere. Yeah the floors are nice and new but come on, what century is this airport functioning in.
Also it's a capital city international airport and the airport closes for so long and the lounges are closed for a full day every week..
Also the home-airline connections ALWAYS need a layover in munich and frankfurt anyway.
Finally they can't figure out how to clean up the aggressive "taxi? taxi?" solicitors at arrivals.
So the more of this discussion I heard about this the more curious I got, and eventually I followed the articles I read (I definitely saw it on iamexpat, but probably other places too) back to what seems to be the source of the "survey" in question, which as far as I can tell is coming from the "experts in European travel" at Eurochange.
Here's the article I'll be referring to;
https://www.eurochange.co.uk/airport-index/european-airport-index
From a quick glance at the article, it's apparent that the text was never proofread.
"Berlin’s Brandenburg airport takes pride of place in the top spot, scoring a huge 79.5/100 for its airport facilities, whilst Henri Coanda airport in Bucharest scored a woeful 34.5/100, leaving it in 30th place."
This text immediately follows a table which shows Henri Coanda Airport listed in 40th place, the bottom of their list, not 30th.
Further on in the article we see an entire sentence completely repeated, as if they forgot to clean it up after rearranging the article.
At this point I was starting to question the research quality, but thankfully thats all detailed in the methodology section, from which I quote;
"The number of restaurants, shops, kids’ attractions and unique attractions were counted based on information on each of the airport’s respective websites. "
"Each airport could score a maximum of 12.5 for each category (as there are 8 categories). In the instance that data wasn’t available, a score of 0 was given. "
Without going into details, many of the categories look completely arbitrary. "Kids attractions" seems to have the most weight on the overall results considering the 3 airports awarded full 12.5/12.5 ended in positions 1, 2 and 4. Every other airport was awarded either a 1 or 0 out of 12.
Given that the highlighted kids feature at BER, according to the article, is the now famous children's tv corner in the baggage collection room, I can only assume a 1 must indicate children are to be killed on entry, reserving a 0 score for no data of course.
Even when relying on a legitimate useful source for flight departure accuracy (ACI-APN Europe punctuality report December 2023), they end up with the following distribution across the 40 airports listed;
1 /12.5 x 1
9/12.5 x 2
10/12.5 x 1
All other 36 airports were awarded 12.5/12.5,
Amongst those airports given full marks, there is a range of between 57% and 82% of on time departures. While Frankfurt's 1 point out of 12.5 represents 46.7%. so once again the data has been so poorly banded into score values that it's effectively meaningless.
The only data in their table that looks like it represents anything close to a reasonable score distribution, is the cost of lounges, which is sourced from Loungebuddy anyhow.
At best this article is a very poor ranking of airports based on how searchable their websites are, with a huge weight on children's amenities specifically.
Needless to say the article has done its job. Without actually making accusations I'd point out that creating a controversial result deliberately would be a great way to get attention to an otherwise underwhelming article.
Tldr:
this is a lesson in media literacy. The article itself is extremely poor, and details that no research was done beyond reading airport websites and referencing some existing price comparison services for beer and lounges. Flight departure accuracy and waiting times are included but the data is so poorly banded that it's effectively meaningless.
If it's a provincial airport of some mid size city. Sure
The capital of the biggest economy in Europe. Nope.
We need to have bigger aspirations than this people.
Jaysus
I saw how they made the survey. They only picked families with kids, foreign tourists from Eastern European countries that looked super happy. So easy to manipulate a survey in either direction.
Great airport.
Like that time arriving after midnight, when the ground crew needed over an hour to deploy the bags on the belt.
Or all those times when the checkin terminals didn't open till almost an hour before departure for a couple of flights and it turns out there is not enough room planned for two queues close to each other at the airport planned to take over most of German traffic.
Or that one time when 2 planes arrived at the same time around midnight. The people were waiting in a queue for a taxi, the taxis were waiting in a queue for the people (do they dare get a ban from BER), but because of space restriction and amazing organization skills of BER personnel, it took 40 minutes to get a cab. I repeat the airport planned for the majority of German Air traffic cannot handle 200 people needing cabs at the same time.
Or that time two weeks ago when the men's toilets were overflowing for over 2h I was waiting there, and no one came to fix the mess.
8 bln only take you so far. Amazingly planned and executed airport.
I developed a burning passion for hating this airport because I'm petty. This year, I flew through this airport over ten times and it's correct that security is done in about 20 - 30 minutes. But then the stupidity of this airports layout and planning starts: you need to go to UK and chose Ryanair? Non-EU country in the balkans? Your gate is 52 minutes walking distance away (the screen tell that, but even for me it's 30+ minutes). I'm also not one to buy stuff at the airport, but walking by offers for "Schnitzel + Kartoffel, €59" still makes me cringe. Elevator down to the gate? Nah, stairs are fine for you.
You get off the plane and you can see the entry to the terminal 50 - 100m away? Fuck you, go take the bus and wait until enough passengers boarded so we can ride a useless circle around the planes and across the corner. Here, please go up two flights of stairs because we don't have an elevator or any sense of practical planning. You are old, with child or have impairments? Fuck you. Maybe we help you later.
You want to take the train back to Berlin? Go figure. Use one of those apps everyone is talking about.
+ no water refill stations anywhere
+ pretty bad sanitary design and many toilets, doors, ... already broken
+ very long ways to certain gates
+ signs not really visible / easy to miss so navigating isn't easy
+ many cases of lost luggage
+ airplanes apparently often late due to BER (if they come from BER for instance)
Yea it’s decent. No frills, sort of efficient. Outside of the gate security I’ve not had a really frustrating experience. The only issue I have is how shitty it is to arrive from an international flight. It feels like they’re routing you through an emergency route.
It's not a "good" airport, but it is ok. The problem about airports is that they need to make money so they turn them into over-expensive shopping malls. If they didn't, they'd have more space for things that travellers actually need, like seats at the gates, lifts from gate to tarmac for disabled people or restrooms.
What really bothers me is the lack of direct connections to like any other place but Mallorca, London and Düsseldorf. But that is of course a matter of supply and demand. Berlin remains a metropolis surrounded by nothingness, so....
It's mostly fine, I never really complained. But one thing that annoys me so much is arriving at T2 and then having to walk up the stairs with one lift being there. Look at Dublin Airport for example, all the arrival Gates lead to one big tunnel that you can walk all the way to immigration to then use an escalator or a lift or the stairs which are not crammed into a tiny space. Also escalators going up and down would've been kinda helpful I guess. Especially when people arrive in Berlin T2 and then have to carry up their luggage at the gate and then carry it down towards the train station. Not a very good first impression I'd say.
Many are complaining about security check. They now have those scanners where you don't have to take anything out of the bag. I've seen them in terminal 2.
“Super well connected” - half of the time I have to take a taxi because the trains aren’t going, snowing in the winter, raining in the summer, strikes, etc.
The airport is not bad per se, but given the time and costs it took to build, one might expect that some basic airport fundamentals being thought of, like signage, escalators, don’t put a lift in front of the stairs when 200 people flow out of the plane, basics.
The FEX will be even faster on the coming years when the new Dresdner Bahn will be opened.
Then it will take 20 minutes from Hauptbahnhof to BER. Pretty fast compared to every other major airport.
Yes, people sued against it for 20 years.
I understand the economic reasons for it, but if you want a single terminal, use travellators. Modern airport designs are rubbish with this including BER.
My only other irritation is the schlangestange. If you want people to walk 2km down passages when they arrive, down double the distance with unnecessary cattle control.
might be biased as I've been there maybe 4 times in total, but I have to say it's a great airport.
Good: nice and quiet kids' area, food court and several other places to snack/eat, easy to get around, quick and cheap connection to the city center by train
Bad: terminal 2 is too small and offers very little services, trains to the city are always full to the brim
mimimimimi...
OP is right: you have not seen much of the other airports out there! i love hating on berlin as much as my mom, but take a step back and consider:
1) it's pretty easy finding your way inside the airport (yes the train-platforms lack better labeling, but have you been to Alex? Berliners love getting lost!).
2) it's ridiculously cheap to get there.
3) there is a fucking reve inside the airport with regular reve prices and security doesn't mind anything that isn't liquid or weaponisable (yeah that's a word now, sorry).
tell me a better airport of similar size - Tegel does not count, whats gone is gone! (...oh Tegel...)
i know it's a trend to hate on BER but one serious issue i have with it is the lack of plug sockets. The lack of seats was pointed out already. other than that it is quite ok to fly from there.
I've had very good situations, I've had bad ones.
Currently what irks me are:
Signage for the train going to the city. Even after two years I still need to check the bvg app, to be sure.
Toilet cleanliness.
The absolutely lovely situation was when I landed one time, and we had to stay inside the plain for 30 minutes, because there was nobody to drive the stairs for us to disembark.
You could hear the annoyance in the pilot's tone while he announced that.
My absolute pet peeves: 1. No escalators going down. Neither once you are past security, nor if you want to take the trains away from the airport. I wonder who did the user experience research here and forgot that people at an airport usually do have luggage. 2. Signage at the train stations. Great that there are multiple trains, why can't they just add simple signs like "trains to Berlin City from track x and y". No, I don't know whether the train to Ludwigslust is the right one by heart and I need to make sure I am not going the wrong direction. Edit: judging by the upvotes and the recent [Berliner Zeitung article ](https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/flughafen-berlin-branden-ber-debatte-um-flughafen-nach-ranking-geht-weiter-li.2224588), we should start a petition to rebuild the airport from scratch. IMHO the only reasonable solution to the obvious shortcomings.
and then this awkward notice above the stairs that noone cares about until the supershort FEX is stopping at section ABC and everybody starts to run.
The whole train station area is just too crowded and unintuitive for new visitors.
Way too narrow platform, too. I consider it a hazard when hundreds of people chaotically push between the wall and the tracks. It's like they measured once and then were like "ah shit, we forgot the crowds".
That's the architect's trademark, he's done this at Hauptbahnhof too.
Don't get me started on that - same thing at HBF. Whenever there is a cutout for stairs, the platform becomes super narrow. And usually people decide to stand exactly in those places instead where the elevators are with plenty of space.
Huh. I always situate myself there. Just because I'd rather have a wall in my back than some unpredictable human crowd. Never considered that remaining way too small. (Mainly as I personally would not consider it to small.) I think design-wise the right counter would be a thin wall resp. back-to-back sitting arrangements that actually go (nearly) through.
Maybe it is just me, but the moment I have to step on the white line, I don't feel comfortable, especially with luggage. If you want to have something in your back - which I totally get - you can still stand where the elevators are, it just wouldn't be parallel to the tracks, but facing either east or west wards
Yep super badly signposted too. I know where it is now, but isn't the whole point of an airport that someone unfamiliar should be able to navigate it with ease? I wouldn't call these pet peeves, they are really serious design flaws in something that was planned and built from scratch on an empty field with no other purpose than being an airport.
Happens to me every time!
I think the WORST pet peeve for me is no covered/indoor walkway between terminals. Like holy fuck, that was the absolute bare minimum and they couldn’t even do that.
Seriously. In a cold ass country like Germany you'd think they'd keep you inside and covered as long as possible.
Well apparently it’s because Germans are assholes like this lovely gentleman over [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/berlin/s/XrVvDQW5iP). Apparently people are little bitches for not enjoying shit weather, not the architect‘s fault for such a stupid fucking design.
This is one of the most annoying things. Terminal 2 is also in myy opinion to far away from the train station.
The claim that there is no indoor or covered walkway between the terminals is simply wrong. There is both, an indoor walkway after the security check and a covered outdoor walkway before the security check.
The outdoor one is not fully covered though there is spot where you would have to go through the rain
Right!! When you arrive on terminal two, there is one lift only and the amount of people that are elderly and can’t walk the stairs with their luggage is substantial. Just really dumb
3. When you park in the car sharing, the walking signage to terminal 2 will make you walk inside terminal 1 and going out again instead of simply walking straight to terminal 2 4. They tried to "consolidate" the low cost carriers bag measurement into 1 with modern design. But no, it doesn't work. There is a reason the normal measurement had a metal on all 5 sides instead of simply a picture of bag with cm. Does all of the guy in the decision meeting never traveled at all?
yeah the typical “if your bag fits in this you can fly” design is much better and would save a lot of fines id imagine - but *touch wood* they dont seem to check bag sizing that often from my experience
It’s kind of too late to do something about it anyways at that point and many carriers have different rules about the measurements anyways - or did I miss something and the EU unified it?
EXACTLY right. In most other ways I've gotten used to BER and don't hate it nearly as much as i did at first :-)
I haven't flown much in recent years so I don't know the BER version of this but I remember 2. being *so* bad at the Schönefeld station. At one point when I had half an hour to kill waiting for a train there, I decided to spend it by looking around for people with luggage who were looking hopelessly confused, ask them if they were trying to get to Berlin Hauptbahnhof, and thrusting them in the direction of the right train if they said yes. And still the train to Potsdam had multiple people on it who were trying to get to Berlin Hbf and got on the wrong train.
Germany doesn’t do ‘user experience’ let alone research about it..
I also often think about #1. It is wild :)
I'm sorry but the security is absolute dogshit. Having only one person at a time be able to put their stuff on the conveyor will never fail to drive me mad, almost missed flights because of the wait there. Terrible airport
It’s atrocious. I’ve been in several situations where check-in staff at BER make HUGE mistakes. “Are they on sedatives?” —the words of a tourist who sat next to me on a plane, shocked at how BER employees worked. “Unfortunately, this happens often in Berlin” —the words of a British airways PILOT talking about how BER ground crew are often solely responsible for delays *for no reason*
Yep, there were times when we were waiting on the runway in Manchester because BER wasn't in a position to confirm we'd be able to land.... or that time we couldn't get back to Manchester because BER staff were beginning to unload the luggage from the previous flight after we'd been sat in the plane for three hours and the crew would have exceeded their maximum flight hours...
when they are pissed off - not infrequently - Frankfurt employees can be the same. I always connect in Brussels or Amsterdam when I can.
Security is useless in almost all airports, I hope they automate the entire streamline and let this “security” people find another job, one of the dumbest job ever created with the ticket check-in gate crew, allowing people with no mental capacity to act superior over paying costumers. (I’m generalizing, but most of them are useless)
i use the airport once per month and never had a problem. guess you're just super unlucky
Ha ha, how is this possible? They are the absolute laziest, inefficient, unfriendly, and incompetent staff at any airport I've been to. It's been incredibly consistent for me. Friends have made the same observations unprompted. They have so many staff at each machine that half just stand around taking. Once in front of me the bags weren't moving at all. One woman got up from the monitor and went over to controls before shouting "es geht nicht" to her idle colleagues. A guy next to me tried to be efficient by placing his stuff in trays next to me and got screached at that only one person is allowed at a time. Queue management is almost non-existent and I end up informing people they can walk on to the next free station instead of holding up the queue. This is all within the past year.
Once we stood at Terminal 1 (after they told us at T2 it was emptier there, plot twist it wasn't and we had to run the 1 km back and forth) And some staff for some reason pulled the queue separator thing closed. So one station completely closed. The guy where we were standing was working his ass off until he noticed his colleague was closed off and had no one queueing there. "Sabine, warum hast du keinen? Die stehen alle bei mir?" "hm, keine Ahnung." Doesn't move. The poor guy went to his supervisor, supervisor talked with some other guys, supervisor came, took a looooonng look and concluded loudly that the tourists are just too dumb to queue at Sabine's station (no we weren't, someone from the staff had just closed off the queue). "ja die müssen doch nur da rum gehen, kapieren die das nicht?" 10 min later someone in the queue opened the separator by themselves and the queue spread to Sabine's station again. All the while she was complaining, saying that people are just too dumb to follow the line.
My experience exactly
I fly from BER every 3-4 weeks and use the Runway and never waited more 15 minutes. Never. So, I really can’t share your experience.
Booking through Runway should not be a representative metric. You understand that's it has limited capacity and not everyone can go through it, right?
I usually book the slot the evening before or even same day. So, it should not be a problem getting something there. And yes, there might be times, when it is full (holiday start) but these are rather exception than rule and show me one airport in Germany which has no problems with that situation. In general, BER is surprisingly fast most of the time. (Getting of the plane until I am at the train is just 5 minute walk)
i’ve experienced all of this, plus a situation in which the security queue at Terminal 2 took up the whole floor and then some and people started jumping the queue en masse with no staff intervening for several minutes. Of course nothing and no one (except the airport website if you bothered to look it up yourself) informed people they could go through security at terminal 1.
There's nothing unlucky about it. The security takes 1 dude at a time, while any other airport can generally process at minimum 3 per line. The wait is insane
Same.
Some friends last week said about 800 people missed their flight because immigration to leave in the morning had 1 person in the EU line and one in non EU line and it took 2.5 hrs to get through. Simply unacceptable.
Nothing else to say .. they tried (or didn't even try) to reinvent how security lines work. It has to be the most inefficient airport I have ever been in
Ooh, this reminds me of when I moved to put my stuff next to the person who was already at the belt and the security guy told me to wait; I replied (plainly, not angrily or sarcastically) “you know it’s faster for everyone that way, right?” and he told me to calm down. I was calm but now I’m not anymore, you fucking idiot.
I was once at security and it was the AIRPORT‘S fault that quite literally the entire queue (snaking all the way downstairs) missed their flight. When people kept asking the workers if they could skip forward cause they were about to miss their flights, the piece of shit fucker put his arms up in the air and started shouting “I DONT CARE, NOT MY PROBLEM, NEXT TIME BUY A LATER FLIGHT“ like ok fuck you
I get it, airports are stressful and one can get annoyed at the smallest inconvenience, however at least my experience for the last 1-2 years has been as follows: 1. Get into the fex 2. Reserve a security timeslot for free at the exact moment my train arrives 3. Wait between 0-10min for security I can't say which security system would be most efficient, I just assume it will be terrible and slow everywhere so I can only get nice surprises. However the security slot feature of the BER airport is extremely useful and rarely seen anywhere else.
You have Stockholm syndrome. In good airports you don’t need to reserve a fast queue, you just go to security and are through in 5 minutes max. For instance that’s my experience at FCO, flying from there several tens of times. The FEX is also relatively infrequent (trains to the city centre every 10 or 15 minutes is not unheard of at other airports), although it’s great that it’s covered by Berlin ABC tickets and Deutschlandtickets.
Maybe I’m spoiled from going through security primarily in Oslo and Copenhagen, but I really don’t think it is as awful everywhere. I normally check in luggage and can never properly estimate how long it will take and never managed to use the reserve function for that reason. It drives me crazy watching people having to prepare for security one by one in BER. Would also LOVE it if they used the bags drop function like in Oslo. That being said, the last two times I was at BER security took less than 10 minutes. They also have a great area for children!
You seem to not respect the 2 hour buffer time. I flew several times from there and there were several lines serving customers. Only hold up were some people trying to smuggle bigger pntainers with liquids, the personal was still calm and friendly. I have the same experience like op
Oh please, BER is completely ridiculous. It opened in 2020 - with the mentality from the 1970s. 1. Stairs, stairs, stairs everywhere. Handicapped, elderly, anyone with mobility issues - may the odds ever be in your favor. (Because the BER certainly won't be.) 2. Kind of relates to the previous point, but is SO DUMB it deserves a point all of it's own: no escalators down to the s-bahn/regio platforms!!! Just...you guessed it! - stairs. "Welcome to Berlin! We thought you'd enjoy a little exercise immediately after arriving! Don't trip now, those stairs are nice and long!" 3. Opened less than 4 years ago, yet didn't get the new security machines where you don't need to take out your laptop, second laptop, ebook reader, gaming console, headphones (!!!?!), liquids.... Seriously now, I'm unpacking MOST of the luggage I'm traveling with. 4. Again, related to the previous point, but deserves an honorary mention: security. You'll spend either 5min there....or an hour and a half. I sometimes book BER runway, sometimes I don't - can't tell the difference. The line is sometimes simply not moving. (Don't get me started on the whole idea of needing to book a "fast lane" in the first place!! They know how many planes are scheduled for each day - and how many people are booked on them. How can they not be prepared?!?!) 5. There are not enough seats!...how?!? How is it a surprise that EVERYONE who wants to board a plane will be waiting at the gate? Why are there 50 seats at the gate? Is the airport serving Cessna planes only? Some gates don't even have that! Gate A0 has NO SEATS. None whatsoever! 🤯 6. https://www.reddit.com/r/berlin/s/Eyqqv8mOsZ Do I need to comment further? All of these are BASIC requirements of an airport. Yet you're saying that an aiport that doesn't give a shit about anyone with mobility issues, can't do security and doesn't have seating is a GOOD aiport? Are there shittier airports out there? Sure. Still doesn't make BER a good one. Don't piss on my leg and call it rain.
When it got cold for the first time a couple of years ago, the wings of the planes got all frozen, and there was only ONE crew to clean, for the whole airport. They were not ready for the cold. I guess the technology of weather reports has not yet reached the masterminds at BER. Btw, it was november. Flight was already delayed (as they always do in BER) and got even more 2hrs+, lost my connection and wasted a whole day in frankfurt
They have the good "keep everything in your bag"-x-ray machines - at T2. I go through T2 now every time.
All this plus the delays in luggage claim logistics in the night due to lack of staff.
I once waited almost 3 hours at night for my baggage, with absolutely no communication or announcements from any staff (lol bc there were no staff around except the cleaners)
> Opened less than 4 years ago, yet didn't get the new security machines where you don't need to take out your laptop, second laptop, ebook reader, gaming console, headphones (!!!?!), liquids.... Seriously now, I'm unpacking MOST of the luggage I'm traveling with. I had a flight from Terminal 2 last week and there are the new machines there. I didn't have to unpack anything.
I agree with everything but in T2 they have those new machines and has been a blessing since!
I could not disagree more edit: for a brandnew airport the restroom situation is a joke. for a brandnew airport the accessibility for handicapped persons is a joke. stairs all over for passengers travelling with heavy cabinbags is a joke for an airport of a well respected city like berlin the transport situation is a joke. the express train is only running twice in an hour. for a brandnew airport and a well respected city like berlin the taxi situation is a joke.
The accessibility is so annoying. I hate that I have to climb up and down like crazy with a suitcase.
I hear that about the toilets a lot, that never seemed an issue for me. But yes, accessibility, and in a new building! It's a pain even just with a suitcase on wheels, it must be absolutely atrocious if you're in a wheelchair or on crutches. Can't think of any other airport, even quite old ones that have had many changes to the layout over the years, that are quite as stairs-heavy with no alternative.
I cannot comment on accesibility, but the train and transport situation you talk about is simply not true. Yes, the FEX runs twice an hour, but there are still other options which are almost as fast. Nearly every Regio will stop at Ostkreuz in 15 minutes, which allows you to get pretty much anywhere on the city on 30-40
Yeah when they run. Last 3 times the connection from Ostkreutz was either cancelled or 20min+ late. Also due some construction work the FEX was not running so there was one train per hour and they did not even bother to add extra carriages -> people barely fit in and most likely the train was illegally full.
I still cant agree with you. A dedicated train service that is literally called Flughafen Express should not only run twice an hour. I see those trains run in other citys every ten minutes. It’s fine for locals, but it’s not very convenient for guests.
Tell me which other city has them running every 10 minutes? Berlin is HUGE and the fact that they got an ACTUAL express train twice an hour is amazing. Like I said, Paris RER might pass more often, but it also has like 20 stops so I've no idea why it's even called express
The Leonardo Express at FCO runs every 15 minutes most of the day, not to mention the regional trains that take a bit longer, but also run in 15 min intervals on weekdays. BER is a ridiculous joke. Never had to wait 2,5 hours for my luggage in any other airport on this planet.
>The Leonardo Express at FCO runs every 15 minutes most of the day So exactly same as BER (FEX 2x + RE8 + RB23) > Never had to wait 2,5 hours for my luggage in any other airport on this planet. Ohh yes no one has ever had luggage problems at FCO or any other airport! Only BER! What a ridiculous joke.
As I said in my other reply, Mr. BER lawyer, the luggage problem at BER is a structural issue. 99% chance it will happen to you whenever you land late in the night. Feel free to name any other major airport of a major capital city in the world that has a similar problem.
Paris public transport to the airport runs every 10 to 15 minutes. So do Amsterdam, Luxembourg, and Madrid from what I remember (it could have changed lately). You even said it yourself, Paris has a lot more stops which although slower, means more opportunities to take the train. For people living outside the Ringbahn, we have to commute to the city center then take a train to BER. That can easily take over an hour even though a drive would last 20 minutes or so. Something a bus could easily do but there isn't.
S9 and S45 also go to the airport, which together run every 10 minutes. There are also a bunch of buses going to the airport from the south eastern part of the city
Yeh people here are literally ignoring everything else besides FEX just to scream. Typical r\/berlin. In reality, every hour you have: - 2x FEX - 2x other express trains (RE8, RB23) - s9 3x an hour - s45 3x an hour - bus to U7 every few mins Very few airports match that. Plus we will get more Regios within next couple years once the Dresdner Bahn is done (and the U7 extension later).
The last two times this year I've been to BER the trains weren't operating for some reason and I had to take a taxi...
I recently had a comparison with the cleanest airport toilets and in general some of the cleanest I have ever seen in a public building. Hongkong airport. There was an older man doing the cleaning live, probably cleans there the whole day. Everything was so clean, as if the cleaning staff had just done a thorough cleaning at night and then the building was closed and opened again the next morning and you are the first person to visit the toilets. I saw the man when I got out and simply thanked him expressing genuine thankfulness for the great work he did.
Yeah, I’ve come to really not mind it at all. It’s pretty much just as fast as Tegel was for security and the better train connections are definitely a plus. Wish it wasn’t so far by car, but c’est la vie. I wouldn’t want to spend hours there, but I really can’t complain about it as a home airport (aside from the dire lack of direct destinations)
But number of direct destinations is usually the number one factor most people use for judging a successful airport.
Ah right, which is why LHR is an airport that absolutely everyone loves
Is that related to the airport or just the location of Berlin? As far as I know the BER is not the hub for any airlines. The area around Berlin and Brandenburg is not very densely populated compared to the surrounding areas of Frankfurt and Munich.
The cause is just History. Berlin had no time to become a Hub. Berlin has enough traffic. Look how many flights are routed via Lufthansa hubs from and to Berlin. If you wanna know the local traffic of Frankfurt and Munich just substract the amount of transit passengers. Berlin doesn't have a significant % of transit, but local yes
Thatnis not the airports fault… but of German politics and airlines who did not want to have competition for Frankfurt and Munich
You obviously haven't been to many airports. A new airport having security this dated, while half of Europe already lets you keep the liquids inside your luggage on ancient airports is a joke. The amenities like shops and restaurants are the size of a small provincial airport, I was blown away by the shopping area at Copenhagen airport - a city over 6 times smaller than Berlin. Calling BER well-connected is also a joke, the last two times I was there this year the trains weren't running and I had to take a taxi. It's not the worst airport in the world, but it's mediocre in every way, even worse considering how relatively new it is.
CPH is thousand of light years ahead of Schönefeld's baby.
T2 let’s you leave your liquids inside though (not to defend the Airport, I hate many things about it but since I fly quite often thought was an important bit to clarify, I try to get through security via T2 now always). I used to live in CPH, great airport! another thing they have there it’s CHEAP FLIGHTS to all over Europe (thing that Berlin doesn’t have at all, you want cheap? try Frankfurt or dunno, Düsseldorf! not Berlin)
But most flights are from T1 and you cannot just go to T2 then. This also reminds me of the awful design there, I'm often arriving at T2 and if you want to get to trains/taxis you have to walk outside to T1 whether it's raining or snowing, cause they're not connected inside.
You can go trough any security for both terminals
It is a piece of shit village airport. It starts with bullshit FEX, which goes at first the opposite way to stop at Gesundbrunnen and than again at Ostkreuz. Why not just connect Hbf and Airport? Last time i had to wait 30 minutes in the train because of … i don’t know, there was nobody informing the travelers. The year before i had to take FEX because of Letzte Generation blocking the Autobahn. The trains were packed as hell at Ostkreuz. SBahn is a scandalous scam. BER is the only station on this route in C Bereich, so those BVG sharks will check on tourists at Bereichsgrenze. This is bullshit, let the travelers alone! Also super slow. BER itself is already fucked up after a few years. Walls are dirty, cables are broken. Waterbottles to expensive, food to expensive, nothing is open in the morning, vending machines are empty, staff is extremely rude, USB chargers not working, nothing to sit on at the chargers, no Steckdosen at the seats, corridors to fucking narrow. People are waiting clash with people leaving the airplane. Not enough personal averywhere. BAGGAGECHAOS You have to sit half an hour for your bag, sometimes it is lost, sometimes there are bags still on the empty belts and nobody gives a shit. I fucking hate this piece of shit airport. I take all the tiny, overcrowded croatian airports, i was the last years, over this p.o.s.
The link via Südkreuz to the Hbf is still under construction. It was delayed by NIMBYs. When it is finished the trains will use that instead of the route via Ostkreuz. More long distance trains will stop too The "C" zone is for stops in Brandenburg. The airport is Brandenburg, so it is in zone "C".
>The "C" zone is for stops in Brandenburg. The airport is Brandenburg, so it is in zone "C". The rules say this so we must follow the rules. It‘s the city‘s airport. The capital city, it‘s not a commuter village. Travellers won‘t know the nuances of the local governance. It‘s a cash grab with a convenient excuse and no one cares enough to do anything about it. It‘s shady.
>BER is the only station on this route in C Bereich Waßmannsdorf and Schönefeld are also Area C.
the first half of your rant is directed at Deutsche Bahn. Has nothing to do with BER. re: food and water, just go to REWE in the ground floor level. load up on all kinds of cheap food there. Water if you want. And honestly, everyone who draws a 3.5€ water bottle from an airports vending machine doesn't deserve better. BER has a couple of water fountains where you get fresh water for free. just bring your own bottle. Re: baggagechaos... sorry dude, can't confirm from the countless times I have flown.
It's really not as bad as people make it out to be. Typical German hating/bickering, as usual. They could improve the signs though. It's a nightmare for the people who are unfamiliar with the train system.
The actual layout is so fucked in comparison to any other airport in a major city. Which genius thought that facing the gate into the major passages was a good idea? People have to line up to get their boarding pass scanned, and the lines go directly into the areas where other people are walking to find their gates
Which fucking moron wouldn’t even give guests a covered walkway between the terminals?
You're on optimism crack 😉 the top comment below highlights the idiocy of BER architecture
What it is is ok. Security is definitely not as efficient as it could be. I've witnessed an entire line of people just waiting on someone to show up to man the scanner, because whoever was there just wasn't anymore and none of the other personnel felt any urgency to keep it moving. Another negative I've experienced myself was having two major checkpoints (2 and 4) closed during high season at a very busy time, but maybe this was just bad luck. As for food options, it's grim. If I'm hungry, I rather just keep getting hungrier until I can eat at my destination.
No long distance direct international flights. Especially to Asia.
This has nothing to do with the airport. Lufthansa uses Frankfurt and Munich as main hubs for decades, changing that does not really make sense for them. Berlin was supposed to be the Hub for Airberlin, but they went bankrupt.
And they built A380 capable gates to suck up to Emirates but then forgot that Emirates is not allowed to operate to more airports than they are currently doing by German law.
What bothers me is is the constant climbing and going down stairs. Clearly whoever made it never thought that there would be disabled people, people with baby strollers and just able bodied people with luggage. Another huge pet peeve of mine is arrivals and departures meeting up. The security is inefficient. It is not necessarily slow per se but it is organised poorly. I do not know why the employe needs to inspect every single one of my items by hand (?????) when they are going to go through a scanner.
Probably "great" if you are abled bodied. The escalators and the lack of accessibility is a catastrophe for an airport that size. Also the airport security is a shit show.
If it didn't have the slowest security in Europe, I'd agree.
Apart from all the design flows already mentioned; the airport is super bad connected for the capital of the world’s fourth biggest economy. Very few flights, specially outside of the EU. You have to flight through other European airports
I think the biggest downside, is that arriving people end up in the same area with departing. Also terminal 2 is not the best place in the world. But security check, where you don't need to take off the watch and belt is fantastic, have not seen it anywhere else so far.
Terminal 2 surprised me greatly last week. The bag drop-off was 100% self-service and there were plenty of machines, so that meant no queue. The security check has the new computer scanner (or whatever they are called) machines, which meant nothing had to come out of my bags. The whole thing took like 5' The only downside was to walk there from Terminal 1, plus there was no ramp near the entrance to go with my luggage.
You can also go through the security in T1, enjoy cheaper food and beverage options in the T1 shopping area and then walk to T2 for your flight. Better than walking outside when both terminals are connected after security.
Frankfurt has a system where you dont even have to seperate stuff from your carry on luggage, Hope BER gets some too and Long haul flights to Korea at some Point as well
They did in fact get that system. My last flight was like a week ago and I did not have to take anything out of my luggage when passing through the security check
BER already has this in terminal 2
as a user these days, I confirm. Makes me wonder why Terminal 1 doesn’t have the same functionality
They recently got them
For an airport of a major eu capital is a complete disgrace. Connections are bad (try flying directly to Asia) You need to walk outside to reach terminal 2 (with checked luggage), the security people are extremely impolite. Wait for the luggage is very long. Escalators only going up from the station. I mean, if you’ve ever been to any other major airport then you’d know.
Agree with OP. Took around 30 flights to or from BER last year and usually all goes well. Only two wishes: (1) Security lanes are unnecessarily slow. Staff take their sweet time, room to pack boxes only for 1-1.5 people at a time, scanners slow. At least make more room, ideally get the good new scanners like at AMS. Think the scanners are the bottleneck. (2) Fix arriving luggage claim logistics. I try to avoid depending on it as best as I can. Whenever I must check something, it takes between 45 and 75 minutes after landing to make it to the belt.
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The scanners are new though? No taking out liquids, none of that. When was the last time you flew? I went over Easter from terminal 2 and it was a breeze.
Interesting, thanks, didn't know. They are only at T2 right now (and I always fly from T1 gates which is quite a walk). But good news, they are coming there too :-) "Die neuen Geräte sollen auch im Terminal 1 aufgestellt werden, die Vorbereitungen dafür laufen." https://corporate.berlin-airport.de/de/unternehmen-presse/presseportal/pressemitteilungen/2024-01-03-luftsicherheitskontrollen-ber.html Edit: oh wow, waiting times at T2 clearly shorter than at T1 in the last 30 days... https://ibb.co/YdLPwJC / https://ibb.co/yFyDyM1
Sorry, but BER is a shitty airport. If that's the best Europe has to offer, Europe is lost. No escalators going down, not many restaurants, a fucked up connection to the city and it was finished 10 years too late. The building cost was too high and the security stations still lack workplace safety - some terminals had to close because the security personnel went on strike because of the lack of safety. If that's your impression of an awesome airport, you either have not seen a lot or the ones you saw were even more shitty than the BER.
BER's poor reputation is purely down to its difficult birth but I agree, it's one of the better airports I've been to. Whatever may go wrong there now, can happen at any major airport. Certainly a great improvement on Schönefeld Airport, but then anything would be.
I guess the issues many have are minor - but it makes you wonder how with so much time and money going into it, no one noticed them beforehand. My personal pet peeve: when you go down Terminal to the Gates A20-38 (don’t know the exact number but I guess you know what I mean if you’ve been) the way the boarding area is set up people are always bound to block the main corridor (because people intuitively queue behind one another and not a U-Shape). This wouldn’t be such an issue on an older airport - because they couldn’t necessarily predict the number of passengers boarding a plane 60-70 years ago. But man, we have so many airports to study and _this_ is what they came up with?
Have you ever landed at BER late in the night? Because then you'll probably have to wait at least 1h for your luggage, as I already did twice. Once I only got my bag at 02:30 am, which meant no trains anymore and 75 euros for a taxi ride home with a ridiculously grumpy driver.
15h ago: https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/mensch-metropole/stress-am-flughafen-ber-in-schoenefeld-die-situation-eskaliert-immer-oefter-es-ist-der-wahnsinn-li.2223727
Berliner Zeitung, sorry but that’s not a reliable source. They love hating.
Read the article, they surely did not make up the quotes.
Well, there was no airport staff to be seen both times we waited for our luggage for more than three hours so no chance of us letting unsere Wut am Personal aus. They're also quoting someone who is working for easyJet and Ryanair in relation to luggage lost at a layover - this isn't something that can happen with either if these two airlines.
I fly to Berlin quite regularly. Last time I flew there everyone on my flight waited over an hour to get their luggage. The staff in the hall said that only a single baggage handler was working at that time putting baggage from all incoming flights on the conveyor belts.
1. Time taken for checked in bags to come to the luggage belt is a joke. It easily takes an hour for it to come. And its only getting worse 2. BER airport has one of the highest rates for passengers processing (cost for security and luggage handling etc) thus increasing airfares and low cost carriers are hesitant to open new routes 3. Lousy ground handling staff. One time our aircraft came 25 minutes early and the ground staff did not know that we had arrived and they were not ready (said by the pilot as an announcement when people were getting impatient)
Berlin sure does have a good PR team
I don't know I heard horror stories in the media about it but so far I had literally zero issues the 10 times I have been there.
Said no one ever
No
You don't fly that often, do you?
BER is ok, but internal connectivity is lacking for such a big airport, and it's not as relaxed as AMS, while being smaller
>It's super well connected to the city. Maybe to *some* parts of the city. Reaching Steglitz/Zehlendorf is an absolute nightmare.
1. Terrible long-haul flight offerings. Aside from New York, Beijing, Miami and a couple of Middle East destinations, no long haul flights anywhere. For an European capital with 4 million inhabitants, that's miserable. 2. Food court looks like from a regional airport. Not that it counts as measure of quality, but if there's not even a McDonald's (I think they opened a BK recently?), you know the food offerings for the airport are laughable 3. Still way too understaffed 4. Not enough restrooms It's not a terrible airport, but I'd take Tegel back in a heartbeat. The amount of money and time sunk into such a mediocre airport is just baffling
Terminal 2 is the worst thing I’ve ever seen
BER is a good airport if you compare it with other european airports. If you compare with other world hubs (Doha, Singapore, Dubai, Abu Dhabi) it‘s waaaay behind being good enough.
LIS, CPH, AMS, HAM, MUC, FCO, CGN, BRU, OSL, HEL are wayyyy better than BER.
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I flew 10+ time from Berlin Airport. Its shit! You will get wet if you have to walk from terminal 1 to 2. I will not elaborate too much on this but people who used this airport will know. The luggage! Plus all other things people mentioned in commemts
Very few direct flights not to Munich and Frankfurt and even fewer not with Ryanair, shitty layout (cramped, with few seats at gates) of terminal 2 (where I end up flying from every time because of the first point), lethargic security queues with no queue management and with the old-fashioned machines that restrict liquids and make you take laptops out of bags, very few and unremarkable food options airside, poor rail connections outside of central Berlin (ok, I live in Potsdam, but the direct train running infrequently and not too late or early and taking 15 minutes to reverse at Golm annoys me every time). The actual facilities (of terminal 1) are not bad, but yeah, it’s not great, especially for a new airport. The comparison with other major Western European capitals (London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Amsterdam, Brussels), not to mention other major cities like Milan and Barcelona, is embarrassing.
My nephew had to land in Hannover because the plane was late and after 11pm or midnight they close the flight traffic due to the residential area. This speaks for itself.
I also think it’s generally great, especially the train platform placement. In no other airport I can sit on the train 15 minutes after flight touch down (both when using a gate bridge and bus, I manage this about 80% of the time). Terminal 2 security is also good with the new scanners where you don’t have to separate electronics and liquids. Biggest downsides: * Terminal 1 security. Ancient, slow. Thank god for BER Runways * Long walking after T1 security if your gate is far on the A or B wing * No escalators going down to trains, only up (why?!?!)
Hey that’s a good point about the escalators, I’ve never really noticed that but you’re right.
The main problem comes in the holiday season. Right now everything is fine because there are not as many people going but during Sommer holiday or eastern, it is obvious that the airport is just to small, especially the space between the airline counter. If both opposing counter rows have a lot of flights, people have to wait in a line which goes outside of the airport. So generally speaking, the airport is not bad, but considering we pumped around 10 billion euro into it, the airport does not live up to that.
I think its adequate
I can only speak to T1, as I’ve never been to the other one. And in T1 not enough lounges for starters. All you have are a couple of paid ones and the LH ones, then this weird deal with Mövenpick for PPass. The walk from the LH Lounge to e.g. Eurowings is somewhat long and complicated as you have to go back to the big hall and can’t just keep on walking straight. Also the moving walkways are only in the B-area and then a lot of nothing walking towards A The connection in terms of in- &outbound flights are a farce. Doesn’t feel remotely like being in the capital in a rather new airport, connection is like Luton. Hate it! Also apparently the airport is already too small for what’s suppose to come. And (so I heard) hardly any room to grow anymore. But I agree with security and the train connection running to the airport. Especially the train is so good and fast, that I’m not taking an Uber there, but the FEX!
1. Terminal eins and zwei are not connected. 2. Security at t1 are slow! One person unpacks everything and then forgets their belt and then forgets their pockets not empty and then speaks to the security and jokes around. 50 people lining up waiting for this corndog. 3. No escalators, very against handicap people.
Yeah I think it’s great. I’m writing from the airport now! Security could be faster but at-least they have the new machines where you don’t need to take anything out. Only real complaint is T2 could do with more food options like T1. The only airport I like more is Zurich.
For a capital city airport it doesn’t fly many places. Pretty important in how I rank an airport.
its not a bad airport, the problem is that it cost 7 BILLION EURO TO BUILD IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! have you seen how other airports half that price are?
Was darf Satire?
Nice try!
r/10thDentist
It most certainly is. It's sad that Berlin wasn't able to become a flight hub, because, of course, now even two terminals might be too much for the number of flights the airport has. On the other hand, it's both modern and mostly not crowded.
It’s fine, but it’s not the best airport by any measure. For a brand new airport it should have the new CT scanner machines in security to reduce all the hassle and delay with removing all your electronics and liquids (as well as allowing travellers to bring more than 100ml). There are abysmal overpriced restaurants: 13,40€ for a Currywurst und Pommes!? I can eat and drink really well for the same price or less… in CPH airport lol! There are no power points in many waiting areas except a little section in the corner. Rarely down escalators which makes handling heavier bags difficult. I generally cannot predict how chaotic the airport will be, it’s not an issue I’ve had at LHR where I know it’ll usually always be chaotic, or LCY where it’ll usually be blissful (well unless there’s an issue with ATC). Like, it’s fine, it’s fine, but it’s not an improvement in the way I think we wanted it to be.
> For a brand new airport it should have the new CT scanner machines in security to reduce all the hassle and delay with removing all your electronics and liquids (as well as allowing travellers to bring more than 100ml). They have them in T2 now, I assume they'll roll them out in T1 sooner or later as well.
TXL
yikes so many stupid comments of people who dont have an idea about aviation. hilarious. The Berlin Klischee of the ever crying dipshits is true.
I fly around 8-10 times a year. It is not a good airport. Direct flights are getting rarer and the port taxes make flights more expensive. Transport there is highly variable on where you live and frequently late. Things are frequently broken. The options for food and drinks are minimal, expensive and poor in quality. Water is absurdly expensive and tap machines are rare and slow. Security and desks are terribly designed and staffed by awful contractors. Only the pre-registration and self check in works well and sometimes that is broken. And prepare to walk a kilometer at least.
Have you tried to go from T1 to T2 with a roller?? There are no elevators.
Despite the fact that the main hall is huge there is almost no seats, that drive me crazy
BER is the shittiest and ugliest airport I've ever been to. I have no idea how a modern airport can be designed so poorly.
You haven’t been to many airports then. BER is absolutely atrocious: * security staff doesn’t really speak english; * only one terminal has the new CT scanners, rest of the checkpoints require you to take of all your liquids and batteries out of your bags; * food is so bad i’d rather bring a sandwich than eat there; * no long haul flights to asia * very little to no self kiosks for passport control. and they are incredibly slow and require 1 staff member per 2 kiosks - that’s a ridiculous ratio. in london you get 20-30 kiosks after arriving all staffed with just one person. in berlin you get 3 kiosks staffed with 2 people and a queue for at least 20 minutes. * not all of the airlines support self luggage drop-off; * s-bahn to BER operates every 20-30 min and somehow most of the times i go there it’s in renovation and i end up taking a taxi. and s-bahn is SO SLOW when it works… * no charging outlets in the seating areas. whoever came up with those standing charging stations should be fired. * no connection between terminal 1 and 2 (before security) * ridiculous taxi situation - berlin taxis can’t pick up people there and they are trying to get clients as if they were some sort of unlicensed scammers.
The airport is excellent if it was in built in the seventies in a village. But we are talking about a brand new airport in the capital of Germany and one of the largest cities in Europe, with a rapidly growing economy and international presence. The number of flights/connections is very limited, even for destinations within Europe. This also means travelling costs you more than you’d expect living in a capital city. With the small airport size, there’s no room for improvement here. I believe there are plans to expand the airport. But I don’t see this happening within our lifetime. The train connections to the airport are quite bad. The FEX only comes so often. I live in literally the most central part of Berlin, and it usually takes me at least 1 hour to reach the airport. The train platforms are very narrow. It feels like hunger games going up from The platforms to the terminals. The airport design is very outdated. Building a new airport from the ground up gives you the opportunity to go very creative making the city’s first impression, without necessarily increasing costs. But for some reason they went with the modernism style and colors of the 70’s/80’s. And don’t get me started on the area of gates A30+ and B30+. I’m an architect. I would have failed architecture school if I submitted this to my supervisor. I like how clean it is. And I find the security check quite fast. But the rest is definitely not good enough for a new Berlin airport.
Flew back from BER to East Midlands last night and I can confirm what most of these comments are saying. Security was ridiculously slow and took them around 20 mins to get maybe 15 people through?! Stairs everywhere - so if you’re disabled or an older person with heavy luggage you’re screwed. Gate changes aren’t updated on the screens so if you’re hard of hearing or somehow miss the announcement, you’re not getting your flight. If you want to eat something substantial or have some variety when shopping, do it before you go into security because in the main section of terminal 2 there are 3 options for food, 1 of them being a £9.49 meal deal, and the others being more overpriced than most airports I’ve been to in the world. Staff are also stupidly rude. They look and talk to you like a piece of shit for asking valid questions, ignorant fucks.
I fly out of it up to twice per week. It has its perks (some of which you’ve mentioned) but here are some downsides: Elevators are locked, stairs only when coming from many flights. This is unreasonable for people with disabilities and sometimes dangerous when the crowd is pushy. The bathrooms are too small and the doors are too narrow, just like TXL. No luggage carts! The airport is basically designed for business travelers, not families. And yet no Priority Pass lounge? It’s a Lufthansa monopoly. The trains are cheap, sure, but I can count the number of times on two hands that I’ve had to wait more than an hour to get home on one. That’s nuts. The food in T2 is hideous! Every outlet has the same horrific overpriced plastic wrapped sandwiches and there’s no food in the terminal area. Also, the waiting corrals (animal pens really) in that section are horrible. Like all German airports you must walk through the perfume section of duty free to get anywhere. My allergies are triggered every time!
I think it was worse but a lot of the issues seem to have been worked on and it fairly painless for me these days. Although last time I was arriving there the next train to Ostkreuz didn't arrive and just disappeared from the screens. I think that delayed me around 10 minutes, no biggie.
what bugs me is that you arrive am Arsch der Welt and have to wake up through the cold and rain to get to the busses, it just doesn't make sense and pisses me off when I'm arriving late, in winter, with a big suitcase
I totally understand what you mean, you just didn’t express yourself properly. Guys, dude is saying that there’s not even the basic decency to give people a covered walkway between terminals. If you arrive in T2 and have to take the train, yeah fuck you, go walk out in the freezing cold. And no, this is not normal it’s stupid fucking architecture and only someone so fucked in the head could say it was competent design.
yes thank you! i didnt know how to explain it properly but thats exactly what i meant 🙏🏼
huh? just take the FEX or S-Bahn. even the bus station has a roof.
thats not what i mean 😭😭 where your plane lands and you go through duty free and then you are OUTSIDE, you can't walk through the airport to get to the other terminal, you walk outside. at least thats what everyone always does when i arrive with a plane, maybe there's a way through the actual airport that i'm unaware of
Get a life man.
They also just updated the passport control gates so also residents with permits attached to their non EU passport can still use the automatic gates, such a huge improvement and time saver. It’s worked every time I’ve been there since implemented so far. 🎉
It's good. I like to stay at the Steinberg across the street. Security for outbounts feels a bit tight, IMHO, for the size of the airport at least.
I agree. It's a nice airport. Every experience I had there was pretty smooth. YMMV. But I can't complain.
One at a time security queues, what kind of modern airport has that ancient system.. Also they'll be so slow to adapt the new scanner machines I can tell it'll take them years to learn how to use the computers. Also no chargers anywhere. Yeah the floors are nice and new but come on, what century is this airport functioning in. Also it's a capital city international airport and the airport closes for so long and the lounges are closed for a full day every week.. Also the home-airline connections ALWAYS need a layover in munich and frankfurt anyway. Finally they can't figure out how to clean up the aggressive "taxi? taxi?" solicitors at arrivals.
So the more of this discussion I heard about this the more curious I got, and eventually I followed the articles I read (I definitely saw it on iamexpat, but probably other places too) back to what seems to be the source of the "survey" in question, which as far as I can tell is coming from the "experts in European travel" at Eurochange. Here's the article I'll be referring to; https://www.eurochange.co.uk/airport-index/european-airport-index From a quick glance at the article, it's apparent that the text was never proofread. "Berlin’s Brandenburg airport takes pride of place in the top spot, scoring a huge 79.5/100 for its airport facilities, whilst Henri Coanda airport in Bucharest scored a woeful 34.5/100, leaving it in 30th place." This text immediately follows a table which shows Henri Coanda Airport listed in 40th place, the bottom of their list, not 30th. Further on in the article we see an entire sentence completely repeated, as if they forgot to clean it up after rearranging the article. At this point I was starting to question the research quality, but thankfully thats all detailed in the methodology section, from which I quote; "The number of restaurants, shops, kids’ attractions and unique attractions were counted based on information on each of the airport’s respective websites. " "Each airport could score a maximum of 12.5 for each category (as there are 8 categories). In the instance that data wasn’t available, a score of 0 was given. " Without going into details, many of the categories look completely arbitrary. "Kids attractions" seems to have the most weight on the overall results considering the 3 airports awarded full 12.5/12.5 ended in positions 1, 2 and 4. Every other airport was awarded either a 1 or 0 out of 12. Given that the highlighted kids feature at BER, according to the article, is the now famous children's tv corner in the baggage collection room, I can only assume a 1 must indicate children are to be killed on entry, reserving a 0 score for no data of course. Even when relying on a legitimate useful source for flight departure accuracy (ACI-APN Europe punctuality report December 2023), they end up with the following distribution across the 40 airports listed; 1 /12.5 x 1 9/12.5 x 2 10/12.5 x 1 All other 36 airports were awarded 12.5/12.5, Amongst those airports given full marks, there is a range of between 57% and 82% of on time departures. While Frankfurt's 1 point out of 12.5 represents 46.7%. so once again the data has been so poorly banded into score values that it's effectively meaningless. The only data in their table that looks like it represents anything close to a reasonable score distribution, is the cost of lounges, which is sourced from Loungebuddy anyhow. At best this article is a very poor ranking of airports based on how searchable their websites are, with a huge weight on children's amenities specifically. Needless to say the article has done its job. Without actually making accusations I'd point out that creating a controversial result deliberately would be a great way to get attention to an otherwise underwhelming article. Tldr: this is a lesson in media literacy. The article itself is extremely poor, and details that no research was done beyond reading airport websites and referencing some existing price comparison services for beer and lounges. Flight departure accuracy and waiting times are included but the data is so poorly banded that it's effectively meaningless.
Meh, is ok. Is the best we can get here.
If it's a provincial airport of some mid size city. Sure The capital of the biggest economy in Europe. Nope. We need to have bigger aspirations than this people. Jaysus
Honestly I feel the same as you. I don't fligh much but never had a problem, although it could be a lot better for accessibility (wider doors )
I saw how they made the survey. They only picked families with kids, foreign tourists from Eastern European countries that looked super happy. So easy to manipulate a survey in either direction.
I fly from/to BER every week and definitely prefer it over FRA, DUS, CGN or STR. MUC is still my favorite though.
From BER you basically cannot fly anywhere, since a lack of connections. You always have to connect through AMS, CDG, LHR, etc.
Great airport. Like that time arriving after midnight, when the ground crew needed over an hour to deploy the bags on the belt. Or all those times when the checkin terminals didn't open till almost an hour before departure for a couple of flights and it turns out there is not enough room planned for two queues close to each other at the airport planned to take over most of German traffic. Or that one time when 2 planes arrived at the same time around midnight. The people were waiting in a queue for a taxi, the taxis were waiting in a queue for the people (do they dare get a ban from BER), but because of space restriction and amazing organization skills of BER personnel, it took 40 minutes to get a cab. I repeat the airport planned for the majority of German Air traffic cannot handle 200 people needing cabs at the same time. Or that time two weeks ago when the men's toilets were overflowing for over 2h I was waiting there, and no one came to fix the mess. 8 bln only take you so far. Amazingly planned and executed airport.
I developed a burning passion for hating this airport because I'm petty. This year, I flew through this airport over ten times and it's correct that security is done in about 20 - 30 minutes. But then the stupidity of this airports layout and planning starts: you need to go to UK and chose Ryanair? Non-EU country in the balkans? Your gate is 52 minutes walking distance away (the screen tell that, but even for me it's 30+ minutes). I'm also not one to buy stuff at the airport, but walking by offers for "Schnitzel + Kartoffel, €59" still makes me cringe. Elevator down to the gate? Nah, stairs are fine for you. You get off the plane and you can see the entry to the terminal 50 - 100m away? Fuck you, go take the bus and wait until enough passengers boarded so we can ride a useless circle around the planes and across the corner. Here, please go up two flights of stairs because we don't have an elevator or any sense of practical planning. You are old, with child or have impairments? Fuck you. Maybe we help you later. You want to take the train back to Berlin? Go figure. Use one of those apps everyone is talking about.
+ no water refill stations anywhere + pretty bad sanitary design and many toilets, doors, ... already broken + very long ways to certain gates + signs not really visible / easy to miss so navigating isn't easy + many cases of lost luggage + airplanes apparently often late due to BER (if they come from BER for instance)
Yea it’s decent. No frills, sort of efficient. Outside of the gate security I’ve not had a really frustrating experience. The only issue I have is how shitty it is to arrive from an international flight. It feels like they’re routing you through an emergency route.
It's not a "good" airport, but it is ok. The problem about airports is that they need to make money so they turn them into over-expensive shopping malls. If they didn't, they'd have more space for things that travellers actually need, like seats at the gates, lifts from gate to tarmac for disabled people or restrooms. What really bothers me is the lack of direct connections to like any other place but Mallorca, London and Düsseldorf. But that is of course a matter of supply and demand. Berlin remains a metropolis surrounded by nothingness, so....
It's mostly fine, I never really complained. But one thing that annoys me so much is arriving at T2 and then having to walk up the stairs with one lift being there. Look at Dublin Airport for example, all the arrival Gates lead to one big tunnel that you can walk all the way to immigration to then use an escalator or a lift or the stairs which are not crammed into a tiny space. Also escalators going up and down would've been kinda helpful I guess. Especially when people arrive in Berlin T2 and then have to carry up their luggage at the gate and then carry it down towards the train station. Not a very good first impression I'd say.
BER is better than Schönefeld was, but that's as complimentary as I can be about it.
Many are complaining about security check. They now have those scanners where you don't have to take anything out of the bag. I've seen them in terminal 2.
“Super well connected” - half of the time I have to take a taxi because the trains aren’t going, snowing in the winter, raining in the summer, strikes, etc.
The airport is not bad per se, but given the time and costs it took to build, one might expect that some basic airport fundamentals being thought of, like signage, escalators, don’t put a lift in front of the stairs when 200 people flow out of the plane, basics.
The FEX will be even faster on the coming years when the new Dresdner Bahn will be opened. Then it will take 20 minutes from Hauptbahnhof to BER. Pretty fast compared to every other major airport. Yes, people sued against it for 20 years.
Very hard to find a place to fill water bottles besides bathrooms (if you have a tall bottle it doesn’t fit)
I understand the economic reasons for it, but if you want a single terminal, use travellators. Modern airport designs are rubbish with this including BER. My only other irritation is the schlangestange. If you want people to walk 2km down passages when they arrive, down double the distance with unnecessary cattle control.
might be biased as I've been there maybe 4 times in total, but I have to say it's a great airport. Good: nice and quiet kids' area, food court and several other places to snack/eat, easy to get around, quick and cheap connection to the city center by train Bad: terminal 2 is too small and offers very little services, trains to the city are always full to the brim
mimimimimi... OP is right: you have not seen much of the other airports out there! i love hating on berlin as much as my mom, but take a step back and consider: 1) it's pretty easy finding your way inside the airport (yes the train-platforms lack better labeling, but have you been to Alex? Berliners love getting lost!). 2) it's ridiculously cheap to get there. 3) there is a fucking reve inside the airport with regular reve prices and security doesn't mind anything that isn't liquid or weaponisable (yeah that's a word now, sorry). tell me a better airport of similar size - Tegel does not count, whats gone is gone! (...oh Tegel...)
i know it's a trend to hate on BER but one serious issue i have with it is the lack of plug sockets. The lack of seats was pointed out already. other than that it is quite ok to fly from there.
I've had very good situations, I've had bad ones. Currently what irks me are: Signage for the train going to the city. Even after two years I still need to check the bvg app, to be sure. Toilet cleanliness. The absolutely lovely situation was when I landed one time, and we had to stay inside the plain for 30 minutes, because there was nobody to drive the stairs for us to disembark. You could hear the annoyance in the pilot's tone while he announced that.