Berlin Brandenburg Airport

✅ Trip Verified | BER is the worst airport I have experienced, and I’m a million-miler/Platinum SkyTeam Frequent Flyer. The signage is abominable, the waits at security are interminable, no special line for First Class passengers on KLM or Air France and the security staff are rude and entirely unfriendly. And for those of us who live in West Berlin (Charlottenburg) and are travelling with more than one piece of luggage, there is no comfortable way to reach the airport for an early morning flight, save for a €60 taxi ride. That this dreadful airport replaced convenient, civilized, and friendly Tegel Airport in West Berlin against the will of the majority of Berliners is a scandal bar none.

✅ Trip Verified | On arrival no comments, connection by FEXtrain to city centre OK. Departure, specifically Security check, disastrous. Not crowded at all the 7th of January, just a few lines open: so far so good. But several personnel together were checking every single passenger one by one and so the queue was not huge but the security waiting time was approx 1 hour for approx. 50 people . Security officers speaking barely English and put nearly every single piece of baggage in a single box, liquids-bag separate, officers overlooked every single liquid bottle wrt content and counted whether the total wasn't above 1 liter pp. Only one Plastic pack per person, and not a too big bag otherwise you were obliged to repack in a smaller bag and throw away the rest. Person in front of me had to throw away some medication as well because it doesn't fit in the bag. Nearly missed our flight due to this non-pragmatic attitude which leads to unexpected long process times. I understood this airport is only opened since 2020. Looking to a more crowded post-COVID time; this airport will have a serious problem with current working procedures and attitude.

Not Verified | Ugly provincial airport with narrow aisles. The architecture is undemanding and uninspiring like a bus station. Apart from the woods chosen, the design looks like a freshman's first attempt. There are far too few check-ins and they are far too close together. Endless queues immediately form, through which one can hardly get through. To be fair, I have to say that this was not the case today on January 2nd due to an extremely low number of passengers. But last October it was disastrous.

✅ Trip Verified | I won't repeat all the negative comments. I will just say that BER is by far the worst airport I have ever experienced. It is even worse than SXF which takes some doing. But let me mention one small issue that is totally telling about the inept, arrogant and uncaring management that operates BER. I am 72 years old. The walking distances involved are extremely uncomfortable for me because unbelievably none of the travellators work, not one in my experience. In multiple visits over a six month period they have never worked. That makes the lounge access I expect for my business class ticket out of the question. But at least the management could provide hand luggage trollies at minimal cost. Athens airport provides them even though the walking distances are much less. The fact that hand luggage trollies are not available at every gate points to a management that just doesn't care. They don't care because they know that as Civil Servants there will be absolutely no consequences for their failure to manage properly. The cost of a few trollies would be absolutely minimal.

Not Verified | Nearly two hours wait for our luggage. Flight was shorter. No help. Very rude and not helpful staff. Very upsetting, especially traveling with children. In September on my last visit the check-in and security check was a disaster already. I nearly missed my flight, although being at the airport two hours prior to flight. It’s just a disgrace. Shame! Shame on anyone responsible.

✅ Trip Verified | After over 10 years of ridiculousness this sad excuse for a “major” airport opened. Over a year after its inauguration it is completely mismanaged, poorly organized, and grossly understaffed. Hour long check-in lines, in which no employees respect their own mask rules, are followed by hour long security checks, in which employees are abusive and rude to any and all people they interact with. Once on the plane it took BER over an hour to finish loading the plane with our luggage, causing us to miss our connection. I would love to say this was an isolated incident, but as I live in Berlin, and frequently use this airport, I can attest to the fact that it is always this awful. Avoid BER at all costs!

Not Verified | First impressions are that this airport is very grand and huge. In fact you wonder why it needs to be so massive. Check in at the EASYJET check in was fairly straightforward and quick. In the current times, I'd strongly recommend that you have printed copies of you Covid test status and passenger locator form. Next was security, with there being no obvious directions as to which of the 5 security checkpoints you were supposed to go to. However, as 3 of them were closed, this narrowed the choice so we opted for security 1. Queues here were unacceptably long and it took over half an hour to get to the actual scanner. Seeing the length of the queues, you'd think the staff would try to clear the backlog, but there's absolutely no sense of urgency, there just aren't enough staff, and the ones that are there spend too much time talking to each other. Glad to get this over, we embarked upon the rather lengthy walk to the departure area (why is this airport so massive?) and the bar. It was now 7.40pm and I walked up to the bar and ordered a couple of drinks. The barman told me that he could not possibly serve me as he was 'closing in a few minutes'. Even if the place closed at 8 pm, that still gave us plenty of time to neck a G&T, but no, he wasn't having any of it. To board the flight, for some reason the departure gate is about 30 metres above the ground, so you then have a fairly long tramp down ramps and stairs to actually get to the plane. Boarding complete, there was then a one hour delay as there seemed to be only one de-icer truck on the whole airport - insufficient staff yet again. I still rate JFK as the worst airport I've ever been to, but this comes a fairly close second.

✅ Trip Verified | We had no issues with the queuing times, which was great. That said, it seemed like there was hardly anyone in the airport. Security checks did seem to take a while per person, so I can see how they could build up. My big issue was the price of everything - really expensive compared to even some other airports I’ve been to, both restaurants and shops. The worst was water - €3.50 for 0.5l. That would be grand if there was somewhere you could fill it/water fountain to drink from; your customers shouldn’t be going around thirsty.

Not Verified | Aer Lingus check in was no problem and staff were efficient and friendly. However, security were an absolute joke. Far too slow with no sense of urgency or care towards anyone who might miss their flight. Three of them literally took one person at a time. Everyone else had to wait until the person was searched, shoes sent back through scanner etc. Also, the body scanner seemingly highlighted something in my pocket but there was nothing there. I actually had to tell the old man on security to stop feeling my genitals!! Manager or supervisor required on security to move . things along.

✅ Trip Verified | I don't think this place is as bad as many people are saying. Terminal looks nice and is functional with quite a lot of space compared to old airports, it's a major improvement over Tegel minus the location. The only peculiar thing is the security check. There are 5 entrances to security and 2 of them were open at the time i was there, there were not many people then but all of the entrances should be open. Selection of shops and restaurants is ok but there could be more and train/taxi takes some time to/from the city. Taxi is about 50€ and train less than 4€