Genius1

There is also the Lounge Tegel for non-Star Alliance airlines operating to Schengen destinations - although I don't know whether it's currently open.

EDIwanderer

When I was headed to Gibraltar from Edinburgh last week the announcements for the FR flight to Brandenburg were fine but it caused some confusion in the information screens listing it as Generic City (Ber). It’s not like they’ve had years and years to anticipate the former city code becoming one for a specific airport!

Nephoi

if i understood it correct, BER was the area code as for the sum of all airports (SXF and TXL), just like you can use NYC for EWR, LGA and JFK alltogether in the search engines or LON for LGW, LHR and LCY and the other London airports, but i dont know why this would be called "generic city".

EDIwanderer

That’s what I was alluding to, although I thought I typed city group code, which I didn’t. Will teach me to put my specs on first!

Nephoi

till 2006 BER also included THF. It shall not be forgotten.

now i got you...
sorry, this happens when you live in generic city (BER).and the monkey in my head has a new catchey tune... take me down to the generic city where the grass is green and the girls are pretty! let us just be thankful that this moneygrave opened up at all.

ZKOKA

What's your source of information regarding PP? Some days ago I was told they were still negotiating with open outcome.

Lounge Tegel will open some time during the first half of 2021, significant interior works are in progress and will take some time.

Dover2Golf

BER was never meant to be as BER is indeed the generic city code. The new airport was meant to be BBI but they lost the code somewhere about 2016 to Bhubaneswar Biju Patnaik International Airport on the coast of India and so today BER it is.

LupineChemist

I remember it being BER for quite some time. Well before 2016. I thought since the plan was always to close TXL (and SXF, but it also seemed obvious they'd need it as a terminal at BER) they were going to take over the generic code since there would only be one airport.

May very well be mistaken but I'd like somewhere with more difinitive info.

layz

I remember on the bmi website using BER for the new airport and TXL for Tegel, so it looks like this code was planned to be used back in 2012.

El_Duderito

Remember the A26 Lufthansa lounge in Frankfurt? It was known as the Kartoffelsalatparadies (potato salad paradise) because they always served cheap potato salad and wiener sausages. Somebody who shall remain anonymous added 'Kartoffelsalat' as synonym for Frankfurt to the TUI website airport picker and for whatever reason that bit of information survived more than a decade and is still visible today.

lhrpete

BER has been around for the 40+ years I remember, since 1989 it has always been BER-Berlin all airports and it could be used in any booking provided you didn't mind which airport you ended up at - TXL, THF or SXF. The same still applies to using LON and it will work provided you don't mind which airport you use.

I remember BBI being the actual designator of the new airport certainly until about five years ago.

slicktony

I appreciate a number of you may have seen this already, but there was an interesting review of BER on head for points the other day.

Too early to judge the lounges I think - the lack of work space and sockets does sound like something that can be corrected without too much hardship. However, the description of security, and specifically the idea that only one person at a time can put their belongings on a belt made me wince.

Of all the wonderful things they could have kept from TXL, the crushing wait at security while yet another person seems surprised by the fact they have to take liquids or laptop out of their hand luggage was not the one I would have picked.

lcylocal

I read this and was surprised they weren’t opening with the 3D scanners they have at AMS. If they were the lack of unpacking areas would be much less on an issue.

cggirl

Went to BER for a work trip recently and as I couldn't find any thread about the new airport before I left, thought I'd post this in case it helps anyone else.
Check-in- Easy to find on the ground floor of Terminal 1, was towards the end (south?) where the taxi dropped me off. There were 2 desks for Eurotraveller and 1 for Club open (I didn't check-in luggage but got the Club desk to check my Covid paperwork and give me a new paper boarding pass)
Security- Tried to go through the Fast Track line as I was booked into CE, but electronic gate did not let me through when scanning my airport-issued boarding pass. As the queue was quite short for non-fast track, I didn't bother enquiring if lack of Fast Track was a mistake or whether indeed BA aren't paying for it at BER (surprising given that in normal times this is a major short-haul route for them)
Lounge location- The entrance is located at the far end of the Schengen area, next to gate A25. It is a trek from the main departure lounge where all the shops are, and appears to be in the opposite direction to the non-Schengen flights (mine was due to leave from a D-gate). As I was trekking there I was resenting how little time I would be able to stay in the lounge and how long it was going to take me to get back to the main departure lounge and then to my gate. However, when I arrived in the lounge, the lady at the desk explained that there was a back exit to the lounge that led directly to a passport control desk and that my gate was in fact just the other side of this desk. So I guess the moral of the story is, the lounge is not as far from the non-Schengen area as it may appear. NB- the lady at the desk also confirmed that if I had not been booked into Club, I would still have had lounge access due to Gold card, so normal One World access rules seem to apply.
Lounge quality- No complaints really, unlike at Tegel is not a dedicated BA lounge so it is bigger (though not as huge as say the main Lufthansa lounges at FRA or MUC). Food and drink offering is similar to Tegel, i.e. snacking food and a few hot options like soup (though no wurst as far as I could see). Big windows give a view onto the airfield on one side.
Overall the experience was fine, I like the new building aesthetically and it was not as hard to get to from West Berlin (Ku'damm) as I feared (just under 30 mins in a taxi), although this is very dependent on traffic flowing well on the ring road.

The _Banking_Scot

Hi,
many thanks for the detailed report cggirl

Will be off to Berlin for 11 days from 11 to 22nd sep ( unless prices to venice or rome or toronto fall) so will ask about he back exit from the lounge on my departure if the departure gates are similar.

Regards

Tbs