Berlin Brandenburg Airport finally opens

The landing of a Qatar Airways flight from Doha on Wednesday morning local time marked the formal opening of the southern runway of Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER).

The second runway is of "particular importance" because its terminal offers "appropriate flight operation areas to welcome long-haul connections on a larger scale," said Engelbert Luetke Daldrup, chief executive officer (CEO) of airport operator Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg GmbH (FBB) in a statement.

All types of passenger aircraft that are currently in operation can use the 4,000 meters long and 60 meters wide southern runway with a concrete thickness of 1.30 meters, according to the BER.

"We finally have an airport that meets international standards," stressed Luetke Daldrup, adding that he was hoping that the new routes would be added to the existing long-haul connections to the United States, Singapore, China and Iran.

With the official opening of the southern runway, the "night flight regulation comes into effect," the BER noted. The regulation prohibits regular scheduled flights between 12 midnight and 5 a.m. and allows only an officially defined quota of flights in the off-peak hours between 10 p.m. and 12 midnight and between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m.

With the parallel operation of both runways at the new airport, a 180-day period for the closure of Berlin's old Tegel Airport has now started, according to the BER.

After nine years of delay, regular operations at Terminal 1 already began with the first commercial landings and departures last weekend. During the construction period, six announced opening dates were postponed as costs rose to at least six billion euros (7.03 billion U.S. dollars), around three times the amount originally planned.

The new airport BER bundles all air traffic of Germany's capital at one location with a total capacity of over 40 million passengers per year. In comparison, Germany's largest airport near Frankfurt has a capacity of over 70 million passengers.