Why Terminal 5? Are there 4 more?

Deliberately numbered that way to emphasise its distance from the new terminals, and to avoid passengers mistaking which station to take a train to.

This is the best time to open with Covid around, as it will allow a gradual buildup of flights over many years rather than a disastrous first day of lost luggage and long delays.

They want to expand BER with terminals 3 and 4 whenever there is more traffic to the south. This is why SXF in the north got numbered T5.
BER T2 is already completed but not open yet due to lack of traffic.
What was finally opened now with big fanfare is just BER T1.

Why are there so many remote stands? With a clean sheet of paper for a new terminal I would have thought a tunnel linked satellite would have made sense.
Do the bus drivers union have a lot of power in this part of the world?

The huge apron area (still being expanded as we speak) is meant to be used for up to two planned satellites. But they "forgot" to build the tunnel or bridge needed and prefer some cheapo apron level passageway now - in case they still build those satellites one day.

I can see two reasons:
1 - To build the access road to the terminal, without needing an (expensive) tunnel.
2 - Noise and safety. Bohnsdorf is/was very close to the landing threshold.

Less Hair

The original plan was to have a LHR-style "toast rack" with underground people mover, from the latest Masterplan documents the closest satellite will be joined to the main terminal effectively creating two 'cul de sac' arrangements of gates north and south. There is also a T3 planned with building in the central Airport City area and then a new pier directly north, parallel with the existing north pier.

https://www.breakingtravelnews.com/i...n-BER-2040.jpg

It's always a bad choice to voluntarily cut through aprons of busy airports blocking taxi routes.

Agree with you - and nitpicking here myself : Berlin is not your average Germany ... :-)

From the "masterplan" posted above I don't see any connection between T5 and the new T1. Is there a way to get from one to the other, ideally airside ?

Yes there is the S-bahn city train that heads out of BER west and swings around the threshold of 07L to T5, one stop in between. Takes about 8 minutes

And there is a shuttle bus line as well.

Sad to see that aircraft being left to rot away for so long, whereas Leila Khaled has not.:bored:

It's only a month or so ago that she was guest speaker at an event organised by Leeds University's Palestine Solidarity Group.

Perhaps Group members, sentimentalists that they are, could be tapped for a few bob to help with the restoration of an aircraft that did so much to enable Khaled tour the international lecture circuit, all these years later.

This is one of the fundamental problems: no, there isn't an airside connection, only the S-Bahn train between them - which is paid for, even between the two terminals! Having said that, there won't be much in the way of transit anyway, so perhaps it's not much of an issue.

IMO, I think it was a mistake to rename SXF to T5 BER. It would have been much more sensible to keep it as a separately named airport, given how poor T5 will be in comparison to T1/T2. It's also confusing given that T5 is really two different terminals (I know, technically four) that are only connected airside, not landside, and I wonder if they won't take the time to change some things about how it operates. One major issue with T5 as it stands is that the non-Schengen gates are very, very barren and that queues can be unbearable in Terminal D arrivals if several non-Schengen flights arrive at once.

It seems the S-Bahn line S9 to the city now starts and runs west from the new terminal, then loops round the west end of the runway and comes back through the old station at the old terminal/T5, thence onwards. I doubt there will be much transit traffic between the two terminals; more likely to be those who have initially gone to the wrong one ! It's every 10 minutes. The S-Bahn was always the most convenient way from Schonefeld into the city, stopping at all the points on the east-west line. Given the ticket system in Berlin, with no barriers and just periodic inspections on the train with fines, the most effective way to make this a free transfer is just arrange for tickets not to be inspected between the two terminals and tell transfer passengers just to get on.

I find there's also new service FEX (Flughafen Express, a polyglot mix of languages, surely it should be FSZ, Flughafen Schnellzug), with dedicated trains, which leaves the new terminal station in the opposite direction, going east, doesn't serve the old one, joins the S9 route after a distance, but then loops right round the north side of the city on the old bypass "Ring" tracks, where it makes a couple of stops, and ends up coming into the main station, the Hauptbahnhof, from the north. It apparently runs only every 30 minutes. I don't know if it charges a premium fare like the equivalent one in Vienna does, which is commonly completely empty, everyone going on the more frequent regular train, but it seems a similar style operation. Described as the fastest way to "the centre", though where the new city main station is located is about the bleakest and furthest-from-everything point in central Berlin. The S9 looks like a much more practical and generally faster way to your city destination - and for the terminal transfer.

If you read this article you’ll see that the best way from BER into Berlin is to take the “regular” train which is a combination of standard Intercity services, regional services and the new FEX service which are timetabled to give a rough 15 minute frequency through the day. Despite the IC and FEX labelling, all services are included in the standard city pricing so will cost €3.60 each way, same as the S-Bahn. But the normal trains take 27-35 minutes and the S9 will take almost an hour.

https://www.europebyrail.eu/berlin-airport-opening-ber/

Sorry to see TXL going. Have a few memories of there when flying CIA.

And now there is apparently a plan to close T5 in March, I guess to the dismay of the LCC...

This way they can move them into the new terminal building getting shops and restaurants closer to break even. Rumors claim they even want to close the new southern runway for the time being due to lack of traffic.