#DankeTXL
Our farewell film to our beloved airport Berlin Tegel.
On November 8, 2020 Berlin Tegel airport closed as the new Berlin Brandenburg airport opened on October 31. TXL was one of our favourite airports ever, especially because of the short walking distances and the stunning observation deck.
The airfield was built in just 90 days by 18,000 Berliners, almost half of them women in 1948 due to the Berlin Blockade. The workers moved 1.2 million cubic meters of soil by hand and the US has flown 10,000 gallons of asphalt into west berlin to build a paved runway.
The famous hexagon terminal complex was built from 1969 to 1974 and has become a landmark of Berlin shortly after. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, government decided that TXL is not a long term solution and signed a contract to build an all new airport outside of Berlin. Because of that TXL was never properly expanded, just with temporary container terminals as BER was set to open in 2006 in early plans. With the opening pushed back several times, TXL had to handle the immense increase of passengers and handled 2019 more than double of it’s official capacity of 11.5 million passengers per year.
