With Berlin’s new Berlin-Brandenburg ready (really!) to open at the end of this month, it’s nostalgia time at the city’s old main airport, Tegel, north of the city center, and Air France will be at the center of the memories, because it was the first to open civilian service to Tegel, on January 2, 1960.
The last flight out of TXL on November 8, a week after the new airport’s opening, will be an Air France flight to Paris, using an A320. The 1960 flight was made with a Lockheed Super-Constellation, seen in the Air France video below.
2. Januar 1960: Heute vor genau 59 Jahren landete das erste Linienflugzeug auf dem Flughafen #-Berlin#Tegel. #AirFrance #TXL pic.twitter.com/DdnJQbxT0a
— rbb|24 (@rbb24) January 2, 2019
Recognizing that the flight will be filled with nostalgians, Air France is offering a special fare on the flight: a €60 discount on a flight from Berlin to any European destination, changing planes after arriving in Paris. And, there’s a connection just in time for those calling Berlin home to fly home to the new airport.
The new airport’s opening, which is nearly a dozen years overdue, has picked up a bit of last-minute speed. Ready to open along with the long-delayed Terminal 1 is Terminal 2, an expansion proposed in 2017, approved in 2018 and constructed in almost record speed. The main terminal of the old Schoenefeld airport, across the runways, is being re-opened as Terminal 5.
Photo: First flight into Tegel, 1950, with VW Beetle guiding Air France Constellation on the taxiway
