Berlin Tegel (airport)

The Tegel missile range was inaugurated on September 27, 1930 by Rudolf Nebel. With the beginning of the blockade of West Berlin in 1948, the construction of the longest 2,400 m long runway at that time was begun. Construction was completed in two months. The first plane landed on it on November 5, 1948, and the official opening took place only at the end of December.

The airport opened for civil aviation only on January 2, 1960. From 1975 to 1985, Tegel was the only passenger airport in West Berlin: Tempelhof was closed to civil aviation. After the reunification of Germany (1990), flights to Lufthansa Airlines began to operate in Tegel, which did not have this opportunity due to the special rights of the Allies after the Second World War .

In 2005, passenger turnover increased by 4.4% and reached 11.53 million people.

The airport terminals north of the landing strip are adjacent to the Tegel district and were used as a military airport by the French side. The first civil aviation flights began to be served there since 1960. In 1974, the northern terminal was closed to civil aviation.

The airport, located in the French sector of occupation of Berlin, served regular flights of the French airline Air France , as well as charter flights of American and British airlines (Channel Airways, Dan-Air Services, Laker Airways and Modern Air Transport "). British Airways and Pan American World Airways flew to Tempelhof Airport until August 31, 1975.

Tegel-South Airport was built in 1965-1975 according to the project of the Hamburg architectural bureau Gerkan, Marg and Partners (" GMP "), which gained international fame thanks to this. The first stone in the foundation of the southern terminal was laid in 1969, construction began in 1970, and in 1971 the end of construction was celebrated. After the official opening on October 23, 1974, the operation of the terminal was launched on November 1, 1974, and in the summer of 1975 all civilian flights, including PanAm and British Airways, were transferred to Tegel.

The core of the airport complex is composed of five terminals and a control tower surrounded on all sides by an airfield. Motor access to it is through a tunnel, runways are adjacent to the apron from the north, cargo terminals and waiting rooms are surrounded by apron, food processing facilities, service and production facilities, such as the electric center, which was also built by the GMP bureau ".

The main direction of flights from Tegel is the Frankfurt Airport connecting hub . In addition, there are direct flights from Tegel to Europe, for example, to London, Paris, Vienna, Madrid, Milan, Oslo, Tallinn, Kiev and Moscow. In addition to flights to Turkey and North Africa, Tegel Airport is connected by air with New York, Newark , Bangkok , Tel Aviv , Doha , Varadero , Punta Cana , Ulaanbaatar and Beijing .

The architectural design of the airport has similarities with the Cologne / Bonn airport, opened five years before Tegel, designed by Professor Paul Schneider-Esleben, both projects are vivid examples of the popular “drive-in airport” concept in the 1960s. In fact, "GMP" has already used a hex with landing passages in the airport project in Hanover , which was not implemented. The GMP project for Sheremetyevo-2 Airport looked similar. However, almost the same airports were built in both Hanover and Moscow according to the design of the Wilke & Partner Hanover architectural bureau. Other GMP projects in Hamburg and Stuttgart do not resemble Tegel Airport.

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