Originally Posted by
F-flyer
East Germany was seeking 'hard currency' and flights were much cheaper from Schönefeld. I remember KLM, Austrian and Swiss also ran a few flights to Schönefeld, as the four allies held something of a monopoly on flights operating from within the four sectors.
I remember catching a transit bus service to West Berlin having flown from Budapest to Schönefeld on Malév. The plane was a Tupolev Tu-154 which was built like a tank.
I sat towards the very back of the plane and enjoyed the sound of the Kuznetsov jets attached to either side of the rear fusalage. Like a Boeing 727 but much, much louder!
The GDR holiday flights were not hugely cheaper, just sufficiently. The GDR authorities may have been exceptionally tedious, but they weren't stupid. One destination that developed was the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, served through Varna and Burgas. Families who had been divided would commonly go there for a holiday together, from East and West, and occasionally would exchange passports, the GDR family would return to Dusseldorf etc, and once arrived the Western family would present at the BRD consulate and say they had been drunk and all their possessions (but not their BRD ID cards) stolen ...
The Tu154 was actually quite a straightforward design, one impressive feature was every landing with them seemed a greaser, something much of Eastern Europe regularly commented on once Boeings and Airbus arrived there. I don't quite know how they did it.
Strangely, the last Caravelle, of all types, I ever saw airborne was approaching Schonefeld, post-reunification. I had noticed in the timetable that Syrian Arab were still running one once weekly on Saturdays on Copenhagen - Berlin - Istanbul - Damascus. Forgot about this, was in.an S-Bahn train going out eastwards to Erkner, and there passing right in front of the train was the Caravelle, on finals. Ran across the train to see it from both sides.Last one I saw.