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TXL to be closed "temporarily" on June 15th – is that good-bye EDDT?

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TXL to be closed "temporarily" on June 15th – is that good-bye EDDT?

Old 22nd May 2020, 17:16
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That's what you are assuming. The polish passengers arrived by car (the drive to Berlin is much shorter than the drive to Warsaw), rail and by air (AB feeding themselves out of several polish cities, including Warsaw).
Yes some tickets might have been a bit cheeper than on LOT*, but there have been parallel flights by UA to EWR and (before that) by DL to JFK. A recent flight from TXL to EWR has shown me there's still a good share of Poles using this opportunity.
On top, AB was feeding AA's focus in JFK and hubs in MIA and ORD, much like UA was feeding their own hub at EWR.
Hainan to Beijing wasn't too shabby either - just like Qatar and Scoot.

There have been succesful intercontinental routes for years and they're still persisting. Whether those were daily, daily-double or just once a week is of lesser importance. It's a lower-volume market that FRA or MUC, yes. It still works out, though. In fact, AA was quite happy being served by AB. That lasted until AB started selling tickets into DFW without prior consulting AA.

Berlin was and still is severely limited by a couple of external and self-made problems. One of them is the lack of industrial and economical strength, which is very slowly recovering**.
The next is the lack of available hub-connections possible, which is self-imposed by the BER-clusterduck. Fun-fact: TXL was supposed to have a subway-station below the connection between it's first and second hexagon. The second hexagon (and the subway-tunnel) never materialised. There was going to be BER, right? Well, Terminal C had to take up the slack and now serves EZY.

Another one is the already mentioned lack of parking-space on an airport that had never been designed to facilitate long-haul connections during peak times. Shuffling any amount of connecting pax through this ancient airport for intercontinental transits has been a major pain in the butt, as well as a monetary isue for AB. The amount of lost baggage is mind-boggling. I once had the chance of claiming a lost bag (fortunately I had an airport-badge) and visiting the lost-baggage area. An absolute horror-picture: Thousands (!) of lost bags waiting to be sent forward to their owners. Some of them half a world away...

Last but certainly not least is the comedic ground-handling.
Want a GPU? Wait for half an hour. Want a working GPU? Well, beats me...


* AB's yield management was one of their demises.
** With the city-state's government, I wouldn't placy any bets on it, though...
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Old 22nd May 2020, 18:37
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Another fun fact was the amount of hotel accommodation Air Berlin used for transit passengers that missed their connection. The de-icing could also barely cope with a large aircraft, I remember waiting for them to deal with a Hainan A330 as the runway conditions deteriorated and time counted down to the curfew, happy days not! The check in could also be a a law unto themselves. My crew and I were positioning (after a day's flying) in uniform back to base in plenty of time on a company machine. I had to call a fellow captain who was flying and get him to explain to them that he was going nowhere till they let us on. I have happy memories too like breaking out of the low overcast into the early morning sun and seeing the TV tower poking out of the fog. The female tower controller with the sexy voice was a plus as well. I really hope things finally work out for Berlin and it is third time lucky with its airports (at least in my flying career) and that SXF is a big success.
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Old 22nd May 2020, 18:53
  #43 (permalink)  
 
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They still don't tell the airlines when to move and where to move from Tegel.
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Old 22nd May 2020, 19:12
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They still don't tell the airlines when to move and where to move from Tegel.
Do you mean that the currently serviced routes from TXL will simply stop ? No more Lufthansa flight from / to Berlin ??
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Old 22nd May 2020, 19:44
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No, the Berlin airport to fly to is just not decided about yet. The Berlin airport group wants to close Tegel ("temporarily") and move all traffic to Schönefeld. However that traffic might again be moved to parts of BER which is not opened yet as we all know. And the date to move is unknown as is if this whole plan is still meant to happen. Pretty strange way to do business is it?
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Old 22nd May 2020, 20:23
  #46 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by Less Hair
Pretty strange way to do business is it?
There much more really strange in Berlin. Its a third world place pretending to be the capital of a first world country. "poor but sexy" the former major once said.
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Old 22nd May 2020, 20:48
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Originally Posted by His dudeness
There much more really strange in Berlin. Its a third world place pretending to be the capital of a first world country.
Seriously? I mean it's not perfect but third world? Maybe your humor is lost on me this time, but I know we have all been to third world places and Berlin isn't one of them.
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Old 22nd May 2020, 20:48
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Originally Posted by Less Hair
West of the Schönfeld site not at the BER site itself.
You make it sound like it’s miles away. It’s literally the other side of the runway to BER. You could argue it’s closer to BER than SXF is!
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Old 22nd May 2020, 20:48
  #49 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by Less Hair
No, the Berlin airport to fly to is just not decided about yet. The Berlin airport group wants to close Tegel ("temporarily") and move all traffic to Schönefeld. However that traffic might again be moved to parts of BER which is not opened yet as we all know. And the date to move is unknown as is if this whole plan is still meant to happen. Pretty strange way to do business is it?
I muss say I am confused. Are the current (admittedly limited) flights services from TXL going to SXF?
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Old 23rd May 2020, 03:00
  #50 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by atakacs
I muss say I am confused. Are the current (admittedly limited) flights services from TXL going to SXF?
Nobody knows yet, in fact, nobody knows if they actually close TXL in June or not, they just made it possible to close it which required agreement between different levels of government and different government authorities (federal, state etc). If demand picks up, which it could do as more airlines restart to operate, they might actually not close it at all until november (and even then it will only close the civil side, the military will remain open for quite some time).

Seriously? I mean it's not perfect but third world? Maybe your humor is lost on me this time, but I know we have all been to third world places and Berlin isn't one of them.


Just the usual southern german attitude towards berlin.
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Old 23rd May 2020, 10:26
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Originally Posted by what next
In which sense? Closing Tegel will leave an agglomeration of 5 million people with single airport and alternates that are half an hour away. This must be unique in the world.
Yes, but that train left the station many years ago as the decision to build BER was taken. Keeping TXL open was never a real option as the entire political deal to even build a new airport came with the forced closure of THF and TXL.

CP
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Old 23rd May 2020, 10:30
  #52 (permalink)  
 
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Expecting all traffic in and out of Berlin to be served by SXF. If SXF is not able to manage the volumes later this summer they’ll open up parts of BER and slowly get it ready for full opening later in the year.

CP
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Old 23rd May 2020, 12:37
  #53 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by lederhosen
The female tower controller with the sexy voice was a plus as well.
Wasn’t it a ground controller with the very sexy voice? I remember pilots so distracted they taxied the wrong way or just forgot the routing she assigned to them, if it was their first time to TXL.. How many times she would have heard “say again”?😀
I also remember tuning in to Tegel GND just for fun when passing overhead and being very disappointed she wasn’t on duty..
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Old 23rd May 2020, 13:06
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Originally Posted by golfyankeesierra
Wasn’t it a ground controller with the very sexy voice? I remember pilots so distracted they taxied the wrong way or just forgot the routing she assigned to them, if it was their first time to TXL.. How many times she would have heard “say again”?😀
I also remember tuning in to Tegel GND just for fun when passing overhead and being very disappointed she wasn’t on duty..
You may well be right. Though what she looked like in reality I have no idea. There was a guy with a very strong German American accent I remember too, as well as the strong admonition on ATIS not to cross the very close parallel runway without clearance. Ferry flights to SXF were also fun. The decision by Wowereit not to go with the turnkey option, but try and save money by self managing the build of SXF will probably go down as one of the most expensive mistakes of all time.
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Old 23rd May 2020, 13:23
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ATCOs in TXL do both tower and ground duties, and at times even clearance delivery although that is usually done by a flight data worker. So you can have encountered her, and other, on both frequencies. I believe that is quite common for DFS run german tower/ground frequencies. Only apron, if it does exist, is run by a different unit. TXL doesn't have an apron frequency or unit. Since there is basically only one taxiway everything that is done on the "apron" as it is, has an effect on the rest of the airport.
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Old 23rd May 2020, 15:46
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Originally Posted by golfyankeesierra
Wasn’t it a ground controller with the very sexy voice? I remember pilots so distracted they taxied the wrong way or just forgot the routing she assigned to them, if it was their first time to TXL.. How many times she would have heard “say again”?😀
I also remember tuning in to Tegel GND just for fun when passing overhead and being very disappointed she wasn’t on duty..
I wonder if she transferred in from Hanover? My father said they (PAA IGS 727) had a mechanical delay in Hanover so the single F/E went up to meet the very nice sounding ground controller. Afterwards the F/E doesn't say anything. Finally after a couple of legs my dad, or the Captain, ask him. Big lady.

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Old 23rd May 2020, 17:44
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Originally Posted by misd-agin
I wonder if she transferred in from Hanover? My father said they (PAA IGS 727) had a mechanical delay in Hanover so the single F/E went up to meet the very nice sounding ground controller. Afterwards the F/E doesn't say anything. Finally after a couple of legs my dad, or the Captain, ask him. Big lady.
To my knowledge there was only one female controller, a red hair with freckles, in Hannover, her sister worked at the BEA ( BA) ticket desk. I doubt she went to Berlin, however, our pilots frequently talked about the TXL lady controller, she was a lady of great fame.
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Old 23rd May 2020, 18:05
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misd-agin - I thought you like this. A Pan Am 727 in " strange " company. A rare shot. I had seen Interflug 134 just two or three weeks earlier at Leipzig, still with the
" GDR " registration. Took this one in October 1990, while temporarily working at HAM.
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Old 3rd Jun 2020, 16:36
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TXL will not be closed in june

Against what has been previously reported, TXL will not close on june 15th. As the papers got it wrong in the first place (only the legal possibility to close was created), and demand is starting to slowly pick up again, that is not really a big surprise after all.

The announcement was done today on a press conference and on the official twitter account (german only) of the airport company. The official reason is to enable the required social distancing in all terminals and for that both SXF and TXL are required until BER opens on halloween.

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Old 3rd Jun 2020, 21:11
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Nobody got anything wrong except maybe you? The airport wanted to use corona as a tool to have all airlines unwilling to move evicted from Tegel by government ordered disease closure and not let them back afterwards until BER opens. In between all traffic would have to be moved to old East German Schönefeld main airport. With corona ending now and summer holiday high season coming up right away they did not have the capacity at SXF alone to serve all Berlin traffic. This is why TXL now has to remain open until late October or early November when BER is finally said to be operational.
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