Easyjet has been flying to Berlin for almost fifteen years, but it is now just over a year and a half since the low-cost airline earned its stripes as one of the world's leading airlines. major carrier in the German capital, in the wake of the bankruptcy of its competitor Airberlin. Since then, Easyjet has steadily strengthened its presence at the city's two airports, Schönefeld and Tegel. With 35 aircraft based in Berlin, the low-cost carrier has a market share of 35% of passenger traffic. Its presence at Tegel, a hub located six kilometres north of the city centre, has enabled it to attract a large customer basethe business travellers.
In particular, the carrier is winning over a large number of professionals in the domestic routes Tegel to Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich and Stuttgart, as well as on routes to major European cities such as London, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Stockholm and Vienna. On these routes, the airline has reworked its timetable to optimise its offer for the business market by increasing the number of morning and evening flights. This has boosted the load factor from 66% last January to over 85% today.
Building on this, the carrier will continue its Berlin expansion with a daily flight to Brussels from this winter, a route that was suspended in 2017. The airline has also confirmed the launch of two weekly frequencies between Nantes and Berlin Tegel this winter and the extension of its four weekly flights to Toulouse and its two daily flights to Manchester.
The carrier offers some sixty destinations from Tegel and around fifty from Schönefeld. At Tegel, Easyjet offers about France flights to Orly and Roissy, Basel-Mulhouse, Biarritz, Montpellier, Nantes, Nice and Toulouse. From Schönefeld, the airline offers flights to Paris CDG, Basel-Mulhouse, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes and Nice.
However, Easyjet's growth in Berlin remains limited. According to Stephan Erler, the airline's new Director for Germany, Easyjet is having to manage a shortage of slots in the air and space on the ground. Tegel is in fact on the brink of asphyxiation with passenger numbers again surging by 25% in the first half of 2019, the highest growth of any German airport.
The two Berlin platforms are in fact suffering from delays accumulated by the now infamous BBI airport (Berlin Brandenburg International). This airport - with a capacity of 28 million passengers - should have been inaugurated in 2011. Four postponements later, the airport is still not operational. The management of Berlin's airports has promised that it will open by October 2020. Speaking before the Brandenburg regional parliament on Tuesday, the CEO of Berlin airports Engelbert Lütke Daldrup was once again optimistic, explaining that the opening for the 2020 IATA winter season was not in doubt. Technical teams are currently checking that all the safety conditions have finally been met. For the moment, everything seems to be up to standard... Good news for Easyjet and the other airlines. "We expect to significantly increase our presence in winter 2020 following the opening of the new airport. We are already in talks with the airport management regarding our location."said Stephan Erler to the German media.
