BA and Berlin-Brandenburg
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: London / Berlin
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BA and Berlin-Brandenburg
I see the head of BER has reiterated that the airport will open on 31 October 2020. Presumably TXL will then close shortly after.
Putting to to one side for the moment the scepticism that anyone who has followed this interminable saga will have about the likelihood of this happening, would it be reasonable to expect BA to open a lounge at BER and if so how long after the opening date might that be?
Putting to to one side for the moment the scepticism that anyone who has followed this interminable saga will have about the likelihood of this happening, would it be reasonable to expect BA to open a lounge at BER and if so how long after the opening date might that be?
#4
FlyerTalk Evangelist
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A couple of years ago CWS said that BA was intending to use the Air Berlin lounge:
BA lounge Berlin Brandenburg
BA lounge Berlin Brandenburg
#8
Moderator, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges, and Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
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A couple of years ago CWS said that BA was intending to use the Air Berlin lounge:
BA lounge Berlin Brandenburg
BA lounge Berlin Brandenburg
#9
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: UK
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Posts: 5,228
And I think Air Berlin took it over from Malév. Still, the one thing AB were not that good at doing was running lounges, their only example was at DUS and Hugo Junkers is/was a lot better. My uninformed guess is that either BER makes BA an amazing offer of a free lounge at BER, as happened in ABZ, or we'll end up with the usual Euro Third Party arrangement. I hope it's the former.
BA operates flights from City, Stansted and Heathrow so has probably similar demand to places where euro outstation (or OW) lounges exist so you would have thought that Berlin would be as good a candidate as any. But that’s pure speculation. Is it really BA’s policy that unless it’s free they won’t invest in lounges within Europe, even in a key capital city? Surely there is a branding / positioning opportunity to compete with *A who presumably will have a Senator lounge. BA has after all maintained its lounge at Tegel for all these years even after feed from the regions stopped after BA Connect was disposed of to flybe. TXL always seems to have a lot of premium connecting traffic which is presumably why somewhere like Manchester gets to keep its lounge whilst somewhere like Malaga doesn’t get its own.
Failing that I wonder if a good third party operator might snap up the space.
I will miss Tegel when it is gone.
Last edited by IAMORGAN; Dec 1, 2019 at 3:15 am
#10
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I had an ‘insider’s’ tour of BER a few months ago. To keep a complex story short, the lounge layout/allocation that was in the blueprints a decade or so ago has changed because of the changes ultimately required by the internal fire doors. This is very much a watch this space item.
#11
Join Date: Nov 2011
Posts: 691
I had an ‘insider’s’ tour of BER a few months ago. To keep a complex story short, the lounge layout/allocation that was in the blueprints a decade or so ago has changed because of the changes ultimately required by the internal fire doors. This is very much a watch this space item.
#13
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Posts: 130
#14
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Is the plan to close TXL if BER opens? Or would it be considered a "city airport" similar to LCY?
If the later then is there a possibility BA could move LHR flights to BER but leave LCY flights going to TXL?
If the later then is there a possibility BA could move LHR flights to BER but leave LCY flights going to TXL?
#15
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The statement made last week is, in the opinion of several people I know who are professionally close to BER (sorry to be so vague), politically motivated. Their opinion, to put it succinctly, is 'we'll believe it when it actually happens'. A lengthier way of saying this is that, even if it does open in October, it won't be the end, or even the beginning of the end, as there are parallel plans to increase capacity, as well as work on the existing terminal and infrastructure that will continue, albeit no so much in customer-obvious ways. An interesting anecdote, for example, and one I'm not sure was widely reported, is that all display screens were replaced in 2018 at a cost of ca EUR 0.5 million, having reached the end of their useful life, without any passenger ever having laid eyes on them.
Last edited by LondonElite; Dec 1, 2019 at 10:30 am