Berlin bids farewell to Tegel airport after 60 years

BERLIN (AP) — Berlin bid farewell Sunday to the German capital's central Tegel airport, beloved by some and reviled by others, as it shifts all air traffic to a new hub on the outskirts of the city.

On Saturday, airlines moved their last planes stationed at Tegel to the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport Willy Brandt, which finally opened at the end of October nine years late and far above its original budget.

The final scheduled flight took off Sunday afternoon from Tegel, an Air France jet to Paris, a tribute to the first commercial flight from the airport flown by the airline 60 years ago.

During the Cold War when Berlin was divided into French, American, British and Soviet sectors, each had its own airport.

The oldest, the American sector's Tempelhof Airport, was closed in 2008 and its main area is now parkland. Britain's Gatow airport was shuttered in 1994, and the Soviet Schoenefeld Airport, located in the surrounding state of Brandenburg in what was communist East Germany, was expanded into the new so-called BER.

Tegel, a site used for airships in the early 1900s and later an air force training area during the Nazi era, was constructed rapidly in 1948 as a response to the Soviet blockade of West Berlin, when the Western Allies had to supply the city entirely by air.

It became a critical hub for the Berlin Airlift operation, which was able to break the Soviet blockade by 1949 — a key moment in the Cold War that demonstrated the Western Allies' resolve to stand beside West Germany.

The first commercial flights began in 1960, when Air France started regular service to Tegel.

Tegel's facilities had become taxed, however, by the increased traffic to Berlin after German reunification when the city again became the capital. Area residents frequently complained of...