Berlin-Tegel Otto Lilienthal Airport

The airport was closed as part of a long-term city planning strategy to consolidate all of Berlin's air traffic into a single, modern hub. Its closure coincided with the opening of the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) on October 31, 2020. Tegel was operating far beyond its designed capacity, was outdated, and its location within the city limits made expansion impossible and created significant noise pollution for residents. The closure was a planned replacement, not due to economic failure or a specific incident.

The former airport site is currently undergoing a massive urban redevelopment project. The area is being transformed into two main districts:
1. **Urban Tech Republic:** The former terminal buildings and surrounding area are being converted into a research and industrial park for companies, startups, and scientific institutions focused on developing technologies for future cities. The main terminal will house the Berliner Hochschule für Technik (Beuth University of Applied Sciences).
2. **Schumacher Quartier:** An adjacent area is being developed into a new, sustainable residential district with over 5,000 apartments, schools, and social infrastructure.
The former runways and open airfield spaces are being repurposed into a large public park and nature conservation area. In the interim period after closure, parts of the facility were temporarily used as a COVID-19 vaccination center and an arrival center for Ukrainian refugees.

Berlin-Tegel (former IATA: TXL, ICAO: EDDT) was the primary international airport for West Berlin during the Cold War and for the reunified city until its closure. Its history is deeply tied to the Cold War. The airport was constructed in just 90 days by French and American forces with German laborers during the Berlin Blockade of 1948-49 to create another vital air corridor for the Berlin Airlift. During the division of Germany, due to the Four Power Agreement, only airlines from the Allied nations (USA, UK, and France) were permitted to fly into Tegel. It became famous for its distinctive hexagonal main terminal (Terminal A), which opened in 1974. This design was celebrated for its efficiency, allowing for extremely short walking distances from a taxi to the aircraft gate. After German reunification in 1990, it became the busiest airport in Berlin, serving as a hub for airlines like Air Berlin and handling over 24 million passengers in its final full year of operation, despite being originally designed for only 2.5 million per year.

There are zero prospects for reopening Berlin-Tegel as an airport. The closure is permanent and irreversible. The site has been officially decommissioned, and the large-scale redevelopment projects are already in progress. While a non-binding public referendum in 2017 resulted in a majority vote to keep Tegel open, the Berlin government proceeded with the long-standing plan to close it upon the commissioning of the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER).