Norse Atlantic Adds Three Berlin Transatlantic Routes

This airline does not come up on search engines which makes it hard for customers to know about their flights.

Lucky, I have barley seen you post at all about breeze airways, almost 20 airplanes strong already.

And what do you recommend for the spirit merger lucky?

Fares look good from the random sample I looked at (8/18-25) NYC - BER. With a carry on Norse is charging $465, United direct for $1012, Lufthansa with layover $625.

One of the other big reasons Berlin doesn't have sufficient service is historical. Until the fall of the Berlin Wall, Lufthansa wasn't permitted to fly there at all IIRC - I think only American, French, and British carriers could fly to West Berlin, and they weren't going to establish a hub there. So the hubs were built in FRA and MUC instead, and were too entrenched by the time Berlin opened up.

Berlin airport is a pain. Security lines are long and not efficient, passport control can take forever and it will just get worse during the summer peak travel season.

More flights will just make it worse and until BER doesn't fix those issues it is an airport I would avoid

Happy to see Norse try to expand the network Norwegian-style, just hoping it's not too much too soon. Don't want them to repeat Norwegian's mistakes.

Despite its dated appearance Tegel was an excellent airport for passengers and very close to Berlin. The new airport is much further from Berlin itself as hinted by the more accurate name Brandenburg Airport. This means taxi to Berlin can be very expensive, was happy using the S-bahn once but in recent years have felt very uncomfortable with the amount of beggars and questionable characters now on urban german public transport.

I stopped using Ryanair as I much preferred Tegel to Schonfield. Now I just avoid Berlin when I can and get the train in to the HBF as it is an excellent location right in the city, and lots of police there make it feel safer.

Picking up what Air Berlin was serving.

Since Breeze itself doesn't advertise worth a damn, it's hard to blame others for not doing their work for them.

Has Berlin even had a west coast nonstop before this? Hard pressed to think of one!

Or even one west of the Mississippi.

Meh, I guess Air Berlin into LAX. Easy to forget, since for most of its time here, they served Dusseldorf with their nonstop, not Berline.

What's up with the weird timing on the west-bound? Who wants to get to their hotel in NYC at midnight thirty?

I've just flown a R/T to BER from EWR with United.
I gotta say that the lack of more international flights makes the lines at immigration pretty much non-existent. The time my flight arrived at BER there was only a Scoot flight coming in from Singapore.
In terms of lounge, FRA and MUC are way better. The Lufthansa business lounge at BER was very crowded inside and with a huge line at the entrance, very Skyclubesque. This was because the agents at the gate were manning all the cancelled LH flights...

Sounds like the airport already gives you the authentic, dysfunctional 'Berlin experience'.

I tried to include Berlin in my recent Europe journey but most of the flights were on Ryanair or Easyjet and everything on LH was via Frankfurt. When Germany's own airline makes it inconvenient and expensive to get to their capital city, that say's something. So I hope this is a winning route for Norse and that they expand the service to other U.S. cities.

flew out of Berlin Brandenburg last summer. sucks and not worth the hype and def not worth the long delayed opening. Berlin was a great city though

Love the idea! But the late arrival times make the service almost unusable. Too bad!!

As others have stated, I welcome the transatlantic flights directly into BER. But departure times are a bit off for most travelers.

I LOVED TEGEL! It was about a 10 minute cab ride to my apartment! BER is so far out, I stay at an airport hotel to get the early flights out.....an added expense.

'Delta is launching a New York to Berlin route as of May 2023; the route will be operated daily during the summer season with a Boeing 787' - I think you meant 767

The late departures from Berlin to NYC and FLL and varied departures are very possibility due to a availability of slots at JFK and terminal access at JFK and FLL and LAX.
Either way, there isn't a whole lot of slack in the US airport system and other airlines have already published schedules to use facilities and slots at the best times, making it much more difficult for a startup to come in.

I'm not giving these routes much chance of success. US-BER nonstop service generally does not work except for UA. There is going to be more than enough capacity on NY-Berlin in high season when Norse comes in daily, with DL and UA also in the market. LAX-BER is absurd. FLL may get some beach market traffic but that's about it.

@ AnishReddi -- Fixed, thanks!!

What exactly was the issue? All LH flights start/end out of Frankfurt or Munich. LH transferred all of their non-hub pair flights to Eurowings. DB train service is also really good if you are coming from Hamburg or Prague.

Easyjet is a decent flying experience as well.

Berlin is indeed a very underserved city from the USA. I truly believe that there's demand for nonstops from major US markets to Berlin. It's not only the capital, but a business center in it's own right - and a far more interesting place to visit than Frankfurt (basically a business destination). LH's reluctance to expand Berlin service does leave an untapped growth market now that Berlin has the needed airport facilities. That said, Norse Atlantic's sketchy scheduling doesn't look like the best way to handle this route. 3 different schedules on 3 different days to LAX? Doesn't make sense.

While I do understand that and appreciate the history, we are talking about 33 years to build a new hub, in your own capital and main city, no less. I don't really buy the reasoning that they had hubs in FRA and MUC so they just looked past BER - look at how many hubs the various US carriers have spread across the US.

LH isn't avoiding Berlin just to be mean... you don't think that if they saw a chance for lucrative/sustained growth, they'd jump at it?

It's not like they're above giving it a go: look at their attempt to build at DUS over the last decade.

As long as they don’t have a decent business class I will not fly them, even if they offer twice daily service to Bismarck ND.

Exactly pstm91. LH ignoring BER will cost them in the long run. I'm glad that United is adding a Washington flight (in addition to the flight to Newark) to connect it's other major east coast hub but really wish they would add a SFO flight to connect the west coast (a lot of technology companies in Berlin should make that a natural fit). United should also test a BER-DEN route. This may even make more sense than IAD.

I don´t think it is absurd at all. A good friend is from L.A. and lives in Berlin. She wanted to fly on Norse back to the US in November and couldn´t find any availability, so she reluctantly booked LX at a much higher price. Berlin has more and more international companies, is a major convention spot and also is the no. 3 tourist destination city in Europe. Lufthansa originally was found in Berlin, but the war as well as the division of Germany made Frankfurt and later Munich airports big. Hamburg and Berlin are important feeder markets for LH and if Berliners and Brandenburger (plus passengers from West-Poland) have the chance to fly direct to the US LH will feel it. In the next ten years the main business market in Germany will be Berlin, as Bavaria and Southern Germany will suffer from the decline of the gasoline motor car industry and its suppliers, which contribute a good 1/3 of their economy. Berlin on the other hand has Tesla, Intel will be in Magdeburg, Amazon is growing its campus in Berlin and Siemens is investing quite a bit, too. Together with all the growing start-ups and the medical companies/convention business/tourism a lot of new potential for air traffic will be generated in Berlin.

TXL had an SFO and a LAX flight before. Took both

No clue how often you have used BER. I live here and been there probably 40 times since it opened. Way more efficient than FRA or MUC. Never waited longer than 15 min at security. Passport control for EU citizens is done by E-gates which are quick and efficient as well. And no it didn´t get worse during the summer peak.