Berlin Brandenburg Airport

Not Verified | This new airport is extremely poorly laid out from an operational point of view. The list is too long for all design errors, so I will bullet point the worst ones: - Massive windows with very poor air conditioning, turning the terminals into saunas. - Opposite problem in the winter, where the train tracks run from the east under the terminal. This open design funnels the freezing east wind directly into the terminal unabated, making it very cold during the winter. - Only centralized security control, making the walking distance from security to the furthest gates a good 20 minutes (walk ways broken before airport was even opened). - Only one taxi line after aircraft push back, meaning that a pushing aircraft stops movement of other aircraft in that particular area of the terminal. Result is more delay. - No ground vehicle tunnel to remote stands, which has made the airport close off taxiways V1 and V2 at the north end to allow ground vehicles to cross the apron. Result a bottleneck which again brings delays. - Non sensical stairs layout, making passengers walk up and down for no other reason than poor design. - Expensive, poor equipment and furnishing choices which trippled the airport fees compared to Schonefeld. Result is much higher airfares and reduced route network as fewer routes can be flown economically. There are many more issues, but these are some of main ones.

✅ Trip Verified | Architecture, services and amenities are those of a former GDR airport! In 30 years, as long as the construction lasted, the structure has meanwhile deteriorated respect to the initial design. Difficult to get to and distant from the city, buses and trains stop at Terminal 1, from there it takes half a kilometre, with a stretch open to the elements, to reach the dingy building that turns into a Kafkaesque nightmare for the length of lines waiting at the checkpoints - out of eight stations only two were open - with the risk of missing your flight. I did not want to believe those who advised me to arrive three hours before the flight. (For a 90-minute flight!). The boarding gates look like a refugee camp with people on the floor as there are not enough seats. No bar or restaurant at T2, only vending machines and a sausage cart. The worst experience so far for a big city airport.

✅ Trip Verified | What an absolute dump! This place makes Luton Airport look like a 5 star hotel! Poor design, doesn’t look finished. Looks more like a refuge centre that was thrown up over night! Bars and places to get food extremely poor in Terminal 2. Why did they even bother with this airport, it is an utter embarrassment. Don’t fly in or out of here unless you have to. Fly somewhere else and get the train to Berlin, it would probably be cheaper and definitely more pleasant. People play their own music and get drunk in the corridors, but then you can’t really blame them! The place has the feel of an open air prison you can’t escape until you get your plane!

Not Verified | Unbelievably poor design for a “new” airport. The style is slick, but that’s where the positives end. Security is a disaster. The technology feels like it was designed in late 2001, and the bunched queues show it. Furthermore, the narrow hall in which you queue is a poor fit for the passenger volume. As are the number of lounge seats once through security. And none of them have power outlets. There are inconveniently located and (again) poorly designed, not to mention that they are of such low quality that most of the plugs don’t work. I would not recommend flying out of Berlin. How they thought this would be a new major, modern airport is beyond me.

Not Verified | Airport was packed but they had like only 3-4 security control gates open. ended up waiting like 90mins to pass security, absolutely ridiculous. thank god we arrived early. Along the queue there a giant trash container full of bin bags. Did not smell particularly good.

✅ Trip Verified | It is by far the worst airport I have been, and I have travel quite a lot. At arrival we were forced to take and absurd amount of stairs with our luggage, to go out to the main exit. At departure another huge disappointment, the security personal, 1 man in particular was very rude to me while I was trying to handle a situation with the liquids in my luggage, to the point of causing me an anxiety attack, I had to request a police officer to stop the so call man to continue his harrasment, I filed a complain. The offer of service in the check in is fatal, I had priority pass and was no lane for that, a complete disaster.

Not Verified | We arrived 2 hours prior to our flight, just for the security check. Long story short, we would have missed our flight if some guys hadn't agreed to let us skip the line twice. It would have taken over 3 hours. Also, the staff are incredibly rude. Never have I seen this in my life! Not in Buenos Aires, Tokyo or NY airport. Never!

Not Verified | Flying in, the airport was great - airbridge from the plane, no queue at passport control, baggage reclaim quick, easy to find the train. Departing was horrendous. Special assistance couldn't really offer any assistance unless you were a wheelchair user. Signage was dreadful. Priority security took 90 minutes. Security staff were horrendously rude. Followed the signs at passport control, only to be screamed at by a member of staff because apparently I needed my boarding pass scanned (again!) first. The only polite staff member I met was the person in the passport control booth. No time for shopping or food as our flight was due to board. Long walk to gate, and then flight was delayed and there weren't enough seats at the gate. We were then told our flight would be boarding "from an apron position" and had to walk down 6 flights of steep, wet stone steps to board a bus, which drove us out to the apron. We had to wait 15 minutes to disembark the bus and board the plane, as passengers from the previous flight requiring special assistance had been left waiting on the plane for half an hour. There was then a further wait, as only one bus had been provided, so once we had left the bus, it had to travel back to the terminal to pick up the remaining passengers for our flight. It was a complete shambles - how a newly built airport can be this bad is beyond me

Not Verified | I landed here from Cyprus and departed here also. Signage is poor for arrival and access to trains. Customs was good as I was the only person in line. Baggage was fast. Departure. Check in ok. I had upgraded on one leg so could check in as business. This allowed priority security. Not a big wait. The airport seems a bit too wide open. Not a welcoming environment. I used the Lufthansa lounge which was the extreme end of B area. It was relaxing. Of course they changed my gate and it ended up being the A area. Long walk. It was a gate with no waiting area in front. That was the worst of my departure experience. Kind of miss Tegel, this airport is about an hour out. I don't know about T2 but T1 is not high up in the airport rankings for me. Can't really recommend it, Berlin deserved better.

✅ Trip Verified | The security line was so long it was crazy. The priority lines means nothing. The security people are rude to another level. No respect no empathy