Berlin Schönefeld Airport

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{{Infobox Airport]]

name = Berlin-Schönefeld Airport nativename = Flughafen Berlin-Schönefeld image = Schoenefeld Landsat.jpg IATA = SXF ICAO = EDDB type = Public owner = operator = Berlin Airports [[| city-served = Berlin (Germany)]] [[| location = Schönefeld, Brandenburg]] elevation-f = 157 elevation-m = 48 [[[[| coordinates = 52°22′43″N 013°31′14″E] [[Airport}}]]]] [[| website = www.berlin-airport.de]] metric-rwy = y r1-number = 07R/25L r1-length-f = 9,843 r1-length-m = 3,000 [[| r1-surface = Asphalt]] stat-year = 2008 stat1-header = Passengers stat1-data = 6,600,000 [[[[[[| footnotes = Source: German AIP at European Organisation for the Safety of]] Air]] Navigation|EUROCONTROL]])]

Berlin-Schönefeld Airport () (IATA: SXF, ICAO: EDDB, formerly ETBS) is an international airport located near the town of Schönefeld in Brandenburg, directly at the southern border of Berlin and 18 km (11 mi) southeast of the city centre. Schönefeld was once the major civil airport of East Germany (GDR), and the only airport serving East Berlin.

Schönefeld Airport is situated outside the city proper, unlike Berlin Tegel Airport. Noise pollution is, therefore, less of an issue at Schönefeld. This is the main reason that the airport will be transformed into Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport by 2011. In 2008, the airport served 6.6 million passengers.

Schönefeld Airport is a major base for easyJet and Germanwings.

History

Construction of Interflug's new maintenance hangar (1961).

Berlin-Schönefeld airport was opened on 15 October 1934 to accommodate the Henschel aircraft plant (MLG). By the end of the Second World War, over 14,000 aircraft had been built. On 22 April 1945, the airport was occupied by Soviet troops, and the aircraft construction facilities were either dismantled or blown up. By late 1947, the airport's rail link had been repaired and agricultural machinery was built and repaired on the site. In 1946, the Soviet Air Forces moved from Johannisthal Air Field to Schönefeld, including Aeroflot. In 1947, the Soviet Military Administration in Germany approved the construction of a civilian airport at the site in SMAD (instruction NR. 93).

Following World War II, Tempelhof Airport was used as a United States Air Force base, while the Soviet Air Force relocated to Schönefeld during 1946. Tempelhof was returned to civil administration in 1951, followed by Schönefeld in 1954 and Tegel in 1960. Tegel and Schönefeld served the civilian populations of West Berlin and East Berlin, respectively. Between 1947 and 1990, Schönefeld airport was renamed on several occasions and became the main airport of the GDR Zentralflughafen.

A stipulation of the Four Power Agreement following World War II was a total ban on German carriers' participation in air transport to Berlin, where access was restricted to US, British, French and Soviet airlines. Since Berlin-Schönefeld airport was located outside of the city boundaries of Berlin, this restriction did not apply. Thus, German aircraft of the GDR air carrier Deutsche Lufthansa (officially Deutsche Lufthansa GmbH der DDR), later renamed Interflug, could use Schönefeld airport but not Berlin-Tegel or Tempelhof airports. In the wake of German reunification, Berlin's Tegel and Tempelhof airports could again be served by all German airlines.

Map of the planned Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport and existing airport Schönefeld.

Following German reunification in 1990, the efficacy of operating three separate airports became increasingly prohibitive, leading the Berlin City Council to pursue a single airport that would be more efficient and would decrease the amount of aircraft noise especially from Tegel and Tempelhof, the two centrally located airports within the city. In addition, the cumulative capacity of Berlin's three airports was 15.5 million in late 2003, a measure that would only be needed after 2010, according to current prognoses. Both Tempelhof and Tegel are surrounded by urban development and cannot expand. A single new airport would increase the capacity to at least 30 million initially, which would be expanded to 50 million before 2030. This would enable Berlin to accommodate a number of flights similar in magnitude to that of airports serving other European capitals, like London's Heathrow or Paris' Charles De Gaulle.

The new Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport (BBI) is currently under construction immediately south of Schönefeld Airport and is scheduled for completion in 2011. After a 10-year administrative court battle, on 16 March 2006 the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig gave the go-ahead for the project by ruling in favour of Berlin against challenges by residents and municipalities near the future airport. As Schönefeld is located in Brandenburg, the Bundesland (federal state) surrounding Berlin, the name reflects the fact that the new airport will serve both. BBI will incorporate the south runway of Schönefeld as a common feature. However most of the old airport, including the terminal and apron areas, is intended to undergo a complete urban redevelopment after the new airport opens.

Public Transport

• The airport is served by Berlin Schönefeld Flughafen railway station, a short distance away from the airport terminal. Berlin S-Bahn lines S9 + S45 run every ten minutes. The Regional-Express AirportExpress train is the fastest link to the city centre of Berlin for the same fare (2.80 Euros for a standard single ticket that is valid for two hours on all means of public transport within Berlin and certain suburbs). It runs every 30 minutes, and stops at Berlin Ostbahnhof + Alexanderplatz + Friedrichstrasse + Hauptbahnhof (in 29 min), Zoologischer Garten railway station (in 36 min) + Spandau railway station.
• Taxis take around 30 minutes to get to the city centre.

Airlines and destinations

Berlin-Schönefeld Airport

Schönefeld International Airport has four terminals (A, B, C, D). As the airport is small compared to other major airports, these terminals might be regarded as "halls" or "boarding areas", but they are officially referred to as "terminals", nevertheless. The terminals are connected and are within short walking distances.

• Terminal A is the oldest part of the airport, and sometimes referred to as main building. It features check-in counters A01-A18. Main user is Ryanair. The airside access to the gates is shared with Terminal B, where there are 3 jetway-bridges as well as several walk-boarding gates located at Pier 3a, an extension opened in March 2005.
• Terminal B was originally reserved for transit passengers to and from West Berlin, who took advantage of cheaper air fares and package tours arranged by an East German travel agency. Nowadays, it is used exclusively by easyJet (check-in counters B20-B29), which gave it the name easyJet-Terminal.
• Terminal C was originally built to accommodate flights to Israel. It was reconfigured in 2008 and now handles sightseeing trips and flights in connection with special events. Some flights are operated on a vintage raisin bomber DC-3.
• Terminal D was opened in December 2005 (it is nearly identical to Terminal C at Berlin Tegel Airport) due to rapidly growing passenger numbers. It features check-in counters D40-D57, which are mainly used by Condor and Germanwings.

Terminal A

Airlines	Destinations
Aeroflot	Moscow-Sheremetyevo
Air Algérie	Algiers [seasonal]
Air Berlin	Palma de Mallorca [begins 26 March]
Belavia	Minsk
Bremenfly	Amman, Beirut
easyJet	Basel/Mulhouse, Copenhagen, Liverpool, London-Gatwick, London-Luton
EgyptAir	Cairo
Eurocypria Airlines	Larnaca
Hamburg International	Agadir, Antalya, Larnaca, Pescara, Tel Aviv
Iceland Express	Reykjavik-Keflavik
Icelandair	Reykjavik-Keflavik [seasonal]
Middle East Airlines	Beirut
Nouvelair	Djerba, Monastir [both seasonal]
Pegasus Airlines	Ankara, Antalya, Istanbul-Sabiha Gökçen
Rossiya	St Petersburg
Ryanair	Dublin, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Hahn, London-Stansted, Milan-Bergamo, Stockholm-Skavsta, Weeze
Sky Airlines	Antalya
SunExpress	Antalya, Bodrum [seasonal], Istanbul-Sabiha Gökçen, Izmir
Syrian Arab Airlines	Aleppo, Damascus, Vienna
Tunisair	Djerba, Monastir, Tunis

Terminal B

Airlines	Destinations
easyJet	Athens, Barcelona, Bristol, Brussels, Budapest, Cagliari, Copenhagen, Dubrovnik, Geneva, Glasgow-International, Heraklion, Ibiza, Lisbon, Madrid, Malaga, Milan-Malpensa, Naples, Nice, Olbia, Palma de Mallorca, Paris-Orly, Pisa, Rome-Ciampino, Thessaloniki, Venice-Marco Polo

Terminal D

Airlines	Destinations
Aer Lingus	Cork, Dublin
Air VIA	Burgas [seasonal], Varna [seasonal]
Bulgarian Air Charter	Burgas [seasonal], Varna [seasonal]
Condor	Antalya, Corfu, Dalaman, Heraklion, Hurghada, Kos, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Palma de Mallorca, Rhodes, Tenerife-South
El Al	Tel Aviv
Germanwings	Bastia, Bucharest-Băneasa, Cologne/Bonn, Dubrovnik, Istanbul-Sabiha Gökçen, Moscow-Vnukovo, Munich, Pristina, Pula, Split, Stockholm-Arlanda, Stuttgart, Zadar, Zagreb, Zweibrücken
Israir Airlines	Tel Aviv
Norwegian Air Shuttle	Bergen, Oslo-Gardermoen, Rygge, Stavanger
Sun d'Or International Airlines	Tel Aviv

Cargo airlines [1]

Airlines	Destinations
FedEx Express	Paris-Charles de Gaulle
West Air Sweden	Cologne/Bonn

Accidents

• 12 December 1986, an Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-134 crashed on its approach towards the airport, killing 72 of the 82 passengers and crew on board.
• 17 July 1989, an Ilyushin IL-62 from Interflug bound for Moscow crashed after take-off into a field near Berlin, 21 people died.

External links

• Berlin Schönefeld Airport Homepage
• Local public transportation map (PDF)
• BBI Homepage
• Opponents of the BBI development
• Current view as of July 2009
• Current weather for EDDB at NOAA/NWS
• Accident history for SXF at Aviation Safety Network