mlin32

Of course there is. Except the bureaucracy crushes any meaningful progress of start-up culture in this country. Which explains my earlier point about promises of digitalisation going unfulfilled since 20 years ago.

ecaarch

I flew ATL-STR pre-covid as a tourist and I was the ONLY leisure pax in the D1 cabin. Every other pax had a Mercedes, Porsche or VW logo on their clothing or briefcase tag, etc. STR is a nice city to visit, but make no mistake, the ATL-STR flight existed (and one day will exist again?) solely because of automotive business travel.

desafino

there is a lot of award space available to partners for this route

BER Flyer

To my knowledge DL still has the commercial contracts with both Mercedes and Porsche in place. Keep in mind that Porsche is Deltas mobility partner...which happends to headquarter in Atlanta.

mrdovenb

Semi relevant question: is delta requiring masking on flights to Germany (and other places with domestic mask requirements)? I’ve seen conflicting reports.

gt5889a

Masks were not required on my recent ATL-MUC-ATL trip two weeks ago.

ryanm

AMS-BER on KL a few weeks ago: masks required. About the same time, BER-CDG on AF, not a mask in sight.

I agree with the poster who noted that Berlin has gotten a LOT more expensive. Even five years ago it was still cheaper than many European hotspots, but now--of course, there's inflation (6 euros for a Döner Kebap!)--it's easily on par with Rome or Madrid. KaDeWe used to be a slightly down-market Harrod's; now it's on par. A subway ride is more expensive than NYC by a fair margin. So there's clearly much more wealth in Berlin than even five years ago. Whether this is all generated by tourists and techies, with no other corresponding business wealth, I can't say. Either way, I'm glad the nonstop is back though I sure wish it were TXL! (The BER lounge beats the AF one at TXL, however: the one and only improvement as far as I'm concerned.)

BER Flyer

Well, it's not taking that much to beat the old TXL lounge. We will see if we ever having an Skyteam Lounge at BER, they had planned one for the 2012 opening but back then we had KLM, AF, DL plus Alitalia and Aeroflot operating there.But i'm relieved too having that non-stop back. Who knows how AMS will do next summer.

ckx2

Underserved markets are usually just low yields in reality as otherwise someone would have made a successful and sustaining move already.

jdrtravel

I have not been to Berlin since the new airport (finally) opened. I can't really imagine an airport being worse than TXL, especially a new one. What is wrong with it?

flyerCO

Everything. It didn't open for over 10 years. By point it opened, all computers/monitors/LVD TV screens where past operating life. Plus they had been left running whole time, so they were truly past expected operating period.

This should tell you how well the place was thought out.

ryanm

It's super far out (near the old SXF), with very few direct links on public transit, so from central Berlin it's easily double, maybe triple, the commuting time and also way more expensive if you take a car. It also doesn't have much more capacity than TXL and SXF did combined, which has made many folks wonder what exactly the point was. Long security lines, which of course TXL never had since every gate did its own (until the added side buildings, like for AF/KL, but those served so few gates that they were never an issue).

For me TXL was perfect: super close to the city, easily reachable on public transit, and never a problem with lines or waits. It was not fancy, obviously, but as someone who started going to Berlin in the late 90s a pointed lack of fanciness is exactly what I wanted and expected. Now BER reads like an anodyne, moderately wealthy Northern European airport, its physical distance from the city matched by a total lack of Berlin style/feel in the airport itself.

lindros2

Let’s not forget the duty free at that weird underground mall - I got two Boss suits - Euro/German size - for €295 (two piece) and €365 (three piece) which would easy cost 2-3x that elsewhere.
and you know what? Still nearly perfect, years later…

underattack

I just looked at a random flight JFK->TXL and noticed the last 5 rows of economy being non-bookable. It was a 767-300. Are they already hedging for a smaller plane if demand does not work out? What would be the smaller option for that route? Can a 757 do this flight (I think Delta used it for the STR in the past but sometimes had to add a refueling stop)

As pointed out above, while TXL was a zoo running at a multiple of its designed load, TXL was super efficient. I have not had a chance to fly out of BER yet.

UnevenGray

Could this be the "dynamic seat blocking for families" in place? I can only find a TPG article, but the back two rows being blocked is normal I think. The 3 additional blocked rows could be this family seat blocking. I think the only thing smaller than a 763 is the 75S, but I don't think Delta really wants to run the 757s TATL anymore.