Emirates Can Finally Fly To Berlin, And Lufthansa Is Furious, Of Course

Germany and the United Arab Emirates have just revealed plans to expand their air transport agreement, and with this, Emirates can finally fly to Berlin, something it has been wanting to do for over two decades. As you’d expect, Lufthansa isn’t at all happy about this, and is accusing the German government of all kinds of stuff…

Emirates will finally fly between Dubai and Berlin

On Thursday, September 10, 2026, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan had a state visit to Germany, where he met with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. With this, the UAE pledged to invest €40 billion in Germany, to strengthen ties between the two countries.

There was also an aviation angle to this — as part of this investment, it was announced that airlines from the UAE would be allowed to serve a fifth German city.

You see, air service between Germany and the UAE is restricted based on a bilateral agreement, and up until now, airlines from the UAE have only been allowed to serve four German airports. The UAE has of course wanted to expand this agreement, while Germany hasn’t been willing to do so, at least up until now.

For a long time, Emirates has opted to fly to Dusseldorf (DUS), Frankfurt (FRA), Hamburg (HAM), and Munich (MUC). However, going back to at least 2004, Emirates has been wanting to add flights to Berlin (BER) as well. For a long time, Lufthansa has successfully lobbied for this service to be blocked, but that’s no longer the case.

While it wasn’t explicitly stated in the agreement, the idea is that an airline from the UAE can launch service to a fifth city in Germany as long as current air service to other airports doesn’t expand, and as long as the airline doesn’t plan to launch fifth freedom service from there.

It’s pretty clear what route that is referring to, with Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner already welcoming Emirates to Berlin. While not necessarily the highest yielding, Berlin is by far Germany’s largest city, so this will be fantastic for competition.

The inconsistency in bilateral agreements for Germany has made little sense. For example, Qatar Airways has been allowed to serve five German cities (it already flies to Berlin), while Emirates has been able to serve four German cities. How exactly do you justify that, from a competitive standpoint?

Lufthansa slams German government for allowing this

Lufthansa has of course for a long time been lobbying to prevent Gulf carriers from expanding in Germany, with the usual, predictable arguments (“they’re stealing our jobs!”). For years, Lufthansa’s campaigning has largely centered specifically around Emirates being able to expand to Berlin.

The irony is that Lufthansa doesn’t actually treat Berlin as an important market — instead, it just treats Germany’s largest city as a feeder airport for its two main hubs, though Lufthansa Group does offer Dubai service via its Eurowings low cost carrier subsidiary.

In response to this news, a Lufthansa Group spokesperson released the following statement:

“The expansion of traffic rights agreed today in favor of the United Arab Emirates shifts added value and jobs to the Gulf and further exacerbates the distortion of competition. The already strained situation on domestic routes connecting metropolitan areas to domestic hubs will be further exacerbated by this policy. This federal government is scoring too many own goals.”

Funny enough, I think Lufthansa’s defense here is exactly why Emirates should be granted this permission. Lufthansa’s argument is that domestic feeder flights are at risk because Emirates is expanding to Berlin. It essentially boils down to “how will we be able to fill our domestic feeder flights and get people to overpay for double connections, when Emirates offers a better product, price, and more direct routing?”

Germans absolutely love the sun, and in winter like to travel to places like Bali (DPS), Phuket (HKT), etc. Lufthansa wants to sell those passengers a double connection with high fares, while the Gulf carriers can get people there in one stop.

I’d consider this to be a big win for consumers, as Lufthansa wants to have its cake and eat it too — it wants to control Berlin without actually investing in the market.

Bottom line

Emirates has finally gained the rights to fly to Berlin, something it has wanted to do for over 20 years. However, the bilateral agreement between the two countries capped air service at four destinations. Thanks to expanded cooperation between the two countries, airlines from the UAE will now be allowed to serve five destinations in Germany.

While exact details about Emirates’ new Berlin service remain to be seen, this is some much needed competition for Germany’s largest city.

What do you make of Emirates finally getting permission to fly to Berlin?