Berlin, July 4th, 2026 (The Berlin Spectator) – Airports in Western European capitals could not be busier and they do have direct flights to destinations all over this planet. At Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, passengers can fly to 143 destinations outside of Europe without changing planes. Heathrow Airport in London has a list of 210 destinations of this kind, Schiphol reaches 125.
Located in Schönefeld (Brandenburg province) just outside Berlin, BER is the German capital’s airport. Its number of direct intercontinental flight destinations is as ridiculous as it is embarrassing: There are 23, including some that do not exist in the winter months and some that are not operational yet.
On a regular basis, companies headquartered in Berlin or its outskirts complain about the low number of long-distance flights that go to places beyond the European boundaries. They say it hurts the economy not to have them.
Tunisia and Morocco
From BER Airport, Air Cairo, Egypt Air and some budget airlines offer flights to Cairo, Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh. Starting in October, Marsa Alam is supposed to join the list. And, yes, more destinations in the Middle East can be reached directly from Schönefeld, including Erbil in Iraq (Eurowings), the Jordanian capital Amman (Royal Jordanian), Doha (Qatar Airways), Beirut (Eurowings, Sundair and soon Middle East Airlines) as well as Tel Aviv.
Officially, four airlines fly to Ben Gurion Airport directly from Berlin. But, because of the situation in which Iran is still a threat to Israel and the rest of the world, not all of those routes are operational at this moment. El Al does fly. Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Jeddah are on the list too. Plus there are five direct flight destinations in Tunisia and Morocco.
So, you want to go to Cyprus? No problem. Go to BER on the FEX Airport Express train and you’ll be in Paphos or Larnaca in no time. Fasten your seatbelts and have a wonderful trip. Just don’t get up before the captain has turned off the seatbelt lights.
Rio and Teotihuacán
So far, we mentioned 19 direct flight destinations, meaning, there are only four left. Hainan Airlines will take you to Beijing, Air Canada to Montréal (since yesterday) and Air Transat to Toronto. Also there is one single flight connection to a country called the United States of America: Delta does fly directly to Newark in New Jersey.
So, what does all of this mean? When you, as a Berliner or a Berlin expat, want to spend a great vacation in Tokyo, Bangkok or Sydney, you need to change planes in Amsterdam, London, Paris or Frankfurt. Lufthansa runs its largest hub there and its second-largest in Munich. This has to do with the cold war, when Germany was divided and the German state airline did not even have permission to fly to West Berlin.
Those of you who want to do some Samba dancing in Rio de Janeiro, look at Aztec pyramids in Teotihuacán or stare at the Space Needle in Seattle will have to fly to a hub first as well in order to get a flight from there.
Economic Interests
Yes, BER Airport itself wants more intercontinental flights, entrepreneurs in Berlin do, Red City Hall does, and vacationers would be happy to have them as well. But there are those who do not. In late May, Germany’s Transport Minister Patrick Schnieder of the conservative, center-right CDU said: “We have to exercise caution here.” According to the “Morgenpost” daily, he stated this was about economic interests.
What he meant: If a large airline from abroad came in to offer direct flights to various intercontinental destinations from Berlin Brandenburg Airport, the entire business would change. The main issue: Lufthansa would lose passengers and suffer.
Germany’s largest airline does not care about BER Airport too much. But they will gladly fly paying customers to their hubs in Frankfurt or Munich and take them anywhere from there. For now, the overall situation at BER will probably not change a lot. Yes, there will be a new flight destination or two occasionally, while other routes will be dumped.
By the way: Europe is a rather nice continent with great cities, sandy beaches and nice mountains to hike in. We don’t need Canadian grizzlies to scare the crap out of us. Those smaller Romanian ones will do. BER flies to 118 European destinations. Do you get the hint? Why go far if you can get it all on the continent you’re already on?
