Berlin Brandenburg Airport

Customer Reviews

3 star Skytrax Rating
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Queuing Times 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Staff 12345
Customer rating from 189 reviews
2/10
3 star Skytrax Rating
Sort Reviews by :
Show
1/10

"Very rude and not helpful staff"

(France)

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.
Experience At AirportArrival Only
Date VisitDecember 2021
Type Of TravellerFamily Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
1/10

"completely mismanaged, poorly organized, and grossly understaffed"

(Germany)

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!
Experience At AirportDeparture Only
Date VisitDecember 2021
Type Of TravellerCouple Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
2/10

"there just aren't enough staff"

(United Kingdom)

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.
Experience At AirportDeparture Only
Date VisitDecember 2021
Type Of TravellerCouple Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
3/10

"My big issue was the price of everything"

(Ireland)

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.
Experience At AirportDeparture Only
Date VisitDecember 2021
Type Of TravellerCouple Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
2/10

"security were an absolute joke"

(United Kingdom)

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.
Experience At AirportDeparture Only
Date VisitDecember 2021
Type Of TravellerSolo Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
7/10

"major improvement over Tegel"

(Finland)

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€
Experience At AirportArrival and Departure
Date VisitDecember 2021
Type Of TravellerSolo Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
yes
1/10

"This airport is run so poorly its shocking"

(Germany)

Not Verified | This airport is run so poorly its shocking. Every time I go there I arrive earlier and earlier and they take longer and longer. The airlines check ins are a mess but I will leave that out, that's a symptom of these lowest budget possible airlines we have nowadays. The security is absolutely abysmal. They take everyone's bag apart before they screen, flag your bag if you have any snacks (chips, candy, etc.), they don't understand what a liquid is. I had a pen taken away because it wasn't in my liquids bag. It was not a fountain pen. I saw a guy nearly get arrested for a Danish pastry and they stopped screening everyone to get the police to intervene for the pastry. Just don't allow carry on luggage if you can't handle it. It has taken me 2 hours, 3 hours, and 3.5 hours to get through security before its shocking.
Experience At AirportDeparture Only
Date VisitDecember 2021
Type Of TravellerSolo Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
1/10

"why don’t they staff accordingly?"

(Germany)

Trip Verified | The queues are very long at security so we have been advised to get there 3 hours before departure. But the check in desks only open 2hrs before departure for luggage drop off. Moreover the clerks at check in desks are so slow that it takes over an hour to check in your luggage if you are at the front. If you are at the back of the queue then you would wait an hour and a half for luggage drop off. Then comes the security line. This takes another hour so by now you’ve missed your flight because the check in desk didn’t open early enough to give you enough time for security. With Xmas coming up why don’t they staff accordingly? Moreover the clerks spend a lot of time chatting to one another instead of helping the queue move along.
Experience At AirportArrival and Departure
Date VisitNovember 2021
Type Of TravellerCouple Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
2/10

"really horrible airport to pass through"

(Poland)

Trip Verified | Very bad experience Being an airline employee myself and a frequent visitor to many airports worldwide, I must say that the new Berlin Airport ranks near the very bottom of my list. Enormous queues, poor signage and questionable design decisions make it a really horrible airport to pass through. The experience on arrival is confusing, to say the least. You walk out from the air bridge into the departures area and to reach the baggage reclaim zone, you have to follow the barely visible signage leading to a staircase, where you either need to climb down the stairs or wait for a medium-sized lift, which is not a perfect choice for hundreds of passengers arriving simultaneously. Once you collect your bags and want to take the train to the city, again you’re left on your own in a rather empty hall, trying to buy a ticket from one of the scarcely placed machines and figuring out which is the right platform to get to the city. Luckily I ended up missing only one train that departed from a different platform than the one I randomly chose. The departure is not much of a different story. We arrived for our flight 2h in advance and lined up in the queue to check-in. We managed to check in our bags after only 1:15h of waiting in a queue that was the slowest moving line I’ve ever found myself in. Maybe 30 people were checking in and the 2 staff were spending up to 10 minutes per passenger. With only 45 minutes left till departure, we lined up in the most humongous line to security check which I’ve seen in my life. There are multiple security stations, but each allows only one person at a time, which makes the process incredibly slow. When I told one staff that our flight departs in 25 minutes, first she said to come with her, but 2 seconds later she left us, saying that we will miss the flight and we can’t come for a flight that late - very helpful, thanks. We cleared security only 15 minutes before scheduled departure and we had to run to one of the more distant gates through the endless maze of the terminal. Weirdly, there is a complete lack of travelators, which would have saved us some effort and stress but somehow this common feature known from many other airports is completely absent at BER. My overall experience at Berlin Airport was absolutely terrible and it really makes you wonder what happened to the efficiency and reliability that Germany once used to be know for.
Experience At AirportArrival and Departure
Date VisitNovember 2021
Type Of TravellerFamily Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages N/A
Airport Staff 12345
no
4/10

"A word of warning"

(United Kingdom)

Trip Verified | A word of warning when flying to a non Schengen destination, normally when I fly to BER from London the flight always departs from the C-D gates on the second floor of the terminal departure lounge. However on Tuesday night when I proceeded through the Easypass Scanners, I found out from the duty free shop assistant that I was in the wrong gate area, so 2 police officers had to Escort me back out through passport control and told me that my flight would be departing from the B gates which I found quite odd as I was of the assumption they where only used for Schengen flights, there is however to my surprise a set of non Schengen departure gates numbered B40-B45 at the far end of the pier and are a considerably lengthy walk, these gates have a passport control point before entering and as I was flying with Ryanair to London Stansted, I assume that these gates are designed to be used by budget carriers as an alternative to the jet bridged C-D gates for non Schengen short haul UK/IRL routes. At the Non Schengen B40-B45 gates there is no shops once passing through passport control, however there is a few vending machines and toilets, unfortunately there is no smoking huts available in this area so make sure you use the smokers hut located near gate B30 before walking on down the pier through passport control at B40. Please double check the screens if flying one of the budget airlines to a non Schengen destination that its definitely due to depart from the main NS area at Gates C-D before proceeding through passport control.
Experience At AirportArrival and Departure
Date VisitNovember 2021
Type Of TravellerSolo Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no