Berlin’s historic Tempelhof airport will close for good on 31 October 2008 after a referendum failed to attract enough voters to keep it open. Only 21.7 percent of the 2.4 million eligible voters were in favor of keeping the airport open.
Built in 1923, Berlin’s historic Tempelhof airport is capable of accommodating 1.5 million passengers a year, but only 350,000 passed through it in 2007. This represents the small fraction of the 20 million Berliners who used Berlin’s three airports last year.
Berlin Airports reports that its airlines are offered a choice of moving their air traffic to either Schoenefeld or Tegel, both of which are small airports.
Appropriate capacities would be created accordingly. Berlin Airports is to create substitute capacities in the southern section of Schoenefeld Airport to accommodate business aviation. The existing GAT (general aviation terminal) will be extended for the purpose and an additional hangar built.
According to the BBC News, what makes Tempelhof so interesting is its history, especially during the Soviet blockade of West Berlin.
The crisis started on 24 June 1948, when Soviet forces in the eastern zone blocked Allied rail and road access to the western sectors of Berlin. The Berlin Airlift was one of the biggest humanitarian air relief missions in history.
A new international airport, Berlin Brandenburg International (BBI), is scheduled to open in 2011.
Photo:© TPCOM
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