Originally Posted by
slicktony
My favourite ridiculous story about BER is that Berlin taxis drivers might not be able to pick passengers up from the airport directly as the right to do so would be limited to Brandenburg drivers. The Brandenburg taxis would then handover Berlin bound passengers (i.e. 98% of them) at a stop located at the city limit. Given how the rest of this fiasco has gone, I find it entirely plausible.
There is an element of exaggeration there.
Brandenburg airport (BER) is just outside Berlin, in the locality of Dahme-Spree (LDS). LDS does not permit Berlin-registered taxis to wait for fares in its locality, and Berlin doesn't permit LDS-registered taxis to pick up fares in Berlin. I think this is a quite usual licensing situation across Germany and beyond. The problem is that there are only 1,000 taxis registered in LDS, which is probably not enough to serve a major airport, even one with the excellent transport connections that BER will have, and LDS doesn't want to allow all 8,000 Berlin-registered taxis to wait for fares at BER. Negotiations are, as far I know, ongoing.
However, passengers won't have to change taxis at the border - Berlin taxis will be able to drop passengers at BER, and LDS taxis will be able to take passengers from BER to wherever they want to go.