Lufthansa is to celebrate its final flight to Berlin’s Tegel Airport with an Airbus A350. The old Berlin is set to close in early November at the city’s new Brandenburg Airport finally opens following ten years of delays.
All is set to change at Berlin’s airports over the coming month. While the existing Schönefeld Airport will become a part of the new Brandenburg Airport, the old Tegel Airport will go the way of Berlin’s former Tempelhof Airport. That is to say, once the final flight departs on November 8th, the airport will close its doors for good.
The final Lufthansa flight
While the final flight will depart from Berlin Tegel Airport on November 8th, Lufthansa will vacate the airport on the evening of November 7th. Given that Lufthansa is the German flag carrier, its final flight from this airport in the German capital city has attracted attention.
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Many passengers are keen to be on the last Lufthansa flights to and from Berlin’s Tegel Airport. As a result, Lufthansa has scheduled a much larger aircraft than usual to perform the flight to the following schedule:
- At 19:00, an Airbus A350 will depart from Munich International Airport (MUC) as flight LH 1954. Following a one-hour and ten-minute journey, it will touch down at Berlin’s Tegel Airport (TXL) at 20:10.
- The Airbus A350-900 will then spend one hour on the ground in Berlin.
- At 21:10, the same Airbus A350 will depart from Tegel, marking Lufthansa’s final flight from the airport. The flight, LH 1955, will touch back down at its Munich home at 22:20.
The Airbus A350 is a significant upgrade from the Airbus A320 typically used for flights between Munich and Berlin. Indeed, passengers in the business class cabin will find lie-flat beds instead of the usual economy seats with the middle seat blocked. Twitter’s Jan-Hendrik Fiedler first spotted the change in aircraft type:
Hell yes! My flight from MUC to TXL was upgraded to an A350 due to the high demand on the return flight. Now, should I upgrade to Business Class for the incredibly cheap price of 59€? pic.twitter.com/sdqzpTq3SV
— Jan-Hendrik Fiedler (@FlyingFan1) October 14, 2020
A Lufthansa spokesperson told Simple Flying,
“Many of our customers are interested in this special flight. That’s why we decided to change the aircraft. We want to give as many guests as possible the chance to board this flight and to bid Tegel farewell.”
Air France will operate the airport’s final flight
While Lufthansa and easyJet will touch down at Berlin’s new Brandenburg Airport together to mark its opening, neither will operate the final flight to Tegel. Instead, Air France has been given the honor.
Air France has been allowed to operate the final flight to Tegel, as the airline operated the first flight to Tegel on January 2nd, 1960. It is closing the book it opened just over 60 years ago. On November 8th, the first two Air France flights to Berlin will fly to Brandenburg. However, the third flight of the day, AF1235, will fly to Berlin Tegel. Once it departs, no more flights will use the airport.
On the topic of the final ever flight, Stefan Gumuseli, General Manager Germany Air France-KLM, said
“Air France has the honour of being the last airline to say goodbye to Berlin-Tegel Airport with flight AF1235 from Tegel to Paris and in doing so, closes an important chapter in Franco-German aviation friendship.”
Will you be on one of the final flights to Tegel? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
