On Sunday November 8, 2020 the last flight will take off from Berlin Tegel Airport closing over 40 years of air transport history in Berlin. The airport was built in just four months in 1948. The purpose of the fast-built airport was to welcome aircraft bringing goods to the population of West-Berlin. For one year, Soviet troops blocked all the roads to West Berlin. The half-city received all goods and supply by air.
In the sixties, it was then decided that Tegel would become West-Berlin's new air gateway.
The new airport opened in 1974. It was the most modern terminal in Europe at that time. The terminal's hexagon shape was chosen to make it an airport of short distances. Cars could stop in front of the check-in gates and passengers had just 30 meters to go to access their aircraft! Inside the terminal building, yellow and dark red colours, hexagon-shaped seats and columns gave a typical 70's avant-garde feeling.
Conceived for five million passengers, Tegel became Berlin's main airport after Germany's unification. More provisory buildings were added to accommodate over 20 million passengers a year. Berlin-Tegel closed down on November 8 but it will be kept- it is now listed as a historical heritage - and transformed into a university and research centre for technology.
30,000 Berlin visitors paid a tribute to the airport last month. Asianstraveleurope.com does it as well. A page of the history of the west part of Berlin is now gone. Rediscover how attractive West-Berlin was in a special feature to come soon...