Air France closes the circle at Berlin Tegel Airport [Video]

Berlin Tegel airport officially closed to commercial flights. 60 years after being the first to land, Air France was the last to depart.

On October 8, 2020, Air France operated flight AF1235, with the Airbus A320-200 F-GKXP from Berlin-Tegel Airport (TXL) towards Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG). The ultimate flight received a water salute from fire trucks, as well as a helicopter ballet from the German police.

“Today, on November 8th, 2020, a special chapter in the transport history of the capital region ended,” commented Engelbert Lütke Daldrup, the CEO of Berlin airport manager Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg. “From the beginnings of aviation to mass tourism by air: everything took place in Tegel.”

The airport was built in a record 90 days by an engineering unit of the French occupation troops in Berlin with the help of local volunteers, welcoming the first plane of the Berlin Airlift on November 5, 1948. Until 1990, it was only opened to operators from the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, as part of the Four Power Agreement on Berlin concluded with the USSR. Air France was the first airline to begin regular commercial operations at Tegel on January 2, 1960. “The architectural icon was the gateway to the world for Berliners for decades,” explained Lütke Daldrup. “That is why there was no more fitting farewell to Tegel than an Air France flight."

After almost a decade of delays, operations have finally been moved to the brand-new Berlin Brandenburg Willy Brandt (BER) airport. Air France flew in for the first time on October 8, 2020, on a flight AF1834 from Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG).