Berlin Brandenburg AirportReviews 

Border control nightmare on arrival. Not enough staff. One of the staff directing people started shouting at a passenger 'do you want to go back to London or stay' and kept repeating this. We all decided to keep quiet, it was intimidating. Waiting for 2 hours and we were lucky as the queue was double the length very quickly. Why were there 2 border control booths with 4 people standing behind them who appeared to be supervising? We were second in queue and then they closed the 2 desks. Aagh!

In all fairness when we left there was no problem, but airport very quiet.

Has put us off returning to Europe.

The staff was very rude and very disrespectful to me and my family … check in is very hard and there is barely any help

Was in passport control for nearly double the length of the flight to get there. (Flew from London). Some random security bloke allowed people to push in. Two of the 5 people doing passport checks just up and left. Of the last 3 one spent over an hour just scrolling her phone.

The staff was extremely rude on the security/ inspection section, implying that I was very dirty for having some tissues in my pockets, which I forgot to remove. They talked down on me and raised their tones in a very humiliating way.

This was the worse experience of my life, Ive travelled in over 50 countries around the world and this was absolutely horrendous. The stuff was really rude and shouting to a lot of people. There was a man in a wheelchair and no-one offered to help him. At the luggage control i told them i've lost a gold jewelry after the scan no one answered and started doing something else, I told them again I’ve lost an expensive piece of jewelry and started shouting REALLY LOUD that they have other things to do. I EXPECT NOTHING BUT THE STAFF NEEDS TRAINING OR EVEN BETTER TO BE CHANGED!

Just back from Berlin and thought it worth putting pen to paper about what was a mixed bag!
Arrival at 23:00hrs on a Sunday evening and things could have been better, it took well over an hour to clear passport control, this was down to low staff numbers, don’t get me wrong they were all doing their best and in general were helpful but they simply couldn’t manage 2 flights with the new system that is now in place.
Departure at 17:00hrs on Thursday was a breeze, the self checkin terminals in use by Eurowings and others mean that you can get rid of hold luggage as soon as you arrive, you don’t have to wait for checkin to open. Given all of the noise related to missed flights because of passport control on exit we arrived 3hrs before departure, we got through security in about 10 mins and then passport control in a matter of minutes, we had loads of time to look at duty free and the like before being allocated a boarding gate.
In short arrivals could be better, departures are pretty much sorted, if you arrive late at night ensure that you have a plan B for your onward travel.

On arrival half the biometric machines weren't working, so it took nearly two hours to get through border control.
On departure- the catering options available were pitiful. Hardly any choice regarding ingredients vendors and they all sold pretty much the same food.

Airport for Low cost airline airport all I saw was Ryanair condor whizz air Transavia , along comes the rude staff at check in counters of transavia , acted more like a prison guard not hospitality staff , no food court or restaurant, only factory products like pretzels and muffins ,,, even the duty free staff was not interested in selling ,,,, will avoid this airport when options exists

Stuck at passport control for over 1 hour waiting to get through due to big queues and slow process, it was ridiculous. By the time we got through and to our apartment we could not get entry and the staff had gone home at 2200hrs. Walking the streets till 2am having to then book into a hotel 2.8 miles out the city. If we had gotten through passport control quicker we would of been fine

The worst airport experience I have ever endured. Getting through this airport is experiencing a kafkaesque nightmare on acid. I would travel to Leipzig/Halle to avoid this entirely in future.

For the past 4 years we have been flying from BER Airport in Berlin to the US without major issues, but this time the experience was absolutely terrible.

From the very beginning we were repeatedly stopped and checked at nearly every security point. Most of the time the staff targeted my parents, who are both 65 years old. Even our electronic boarding passes became a problem. The airport staff and United Airlines employees acted as if digital boarding passes were unacceptable and insisted on printed paper versions, which honestly felt like traveling back to the previous century.

During another additional security check for US departures, I was literally questioned for smiling. This was confirmed by a large German airport employee whose attitude and behavior resembled a prison guard far more than an airport service worker.

Right before boarding, at the gate itself, they once again pulled my 65-year-old father aside for another random security check and rushed him so much that he had to run to complete it. The same staff then had the audacity to tell us to hurry because the plane was about to depart.

We arrived at the airport more than 3 hours before the flight, yet the endless and unnecessary controls consumed almost the entire waiting time.

This was by far the worst airport experience we have ever had at Berlin BER. Completely exhausting, stressful, chaotic, and deeply disrespectful toward passengers.

It was also the last time we traveled from BER Airport. I would strongly warn other travelers, especially families and older passengers flying to the US, to be prepared for excessive checks, rude treatment, and an extremely unpleasant experience.

Waiting 1,5 hours for fn passport control. Ridiculous!!
Food offers quality very low, not attractive at all.
What a shame!!

They obviously blew the budget on T1 which is very smart, T2 however is not! For example not a single drinking fountain for water refil past security. Was told the nearest one is in T1! Hardly any shops past security also. Its a shame as T1 is very smart. The kids love urban fossel hunting on the floors to spend time, not possible on the cement floors of T2.

I hope Putin bombs this airport soon. It is terrible...

Appalling crowd control . We have just spent 90 mins getting through passport control. The new biometric machines were fine ....they weren't the problem ...it was the fact that they only had two kiosks open for what was probably 3 plane loads of visitors from non European countries.......the queues were massive!! After 40 mins they added two more kiosks but then our one closed just as we got to the window. So we then had to shuffle over to the the remaining two kiosks . It isn't rocket science to realise that they would need more staff operating the kiosks seeing where the flights had originated from ....mostly the UK !!

The most rude airport staff I ever encountered! First at SAS check-in where the lady with incredible arrogance explained to me like I was a complete idiot that the luggage tags are magnetic. It didn’t say and I haven’t seen it before.

Moving on to security even WORSE. The security lady verbally assaulted an elderly lady because she didn’t know how to put things in the trays. And even more abuse when she didn’t take her hat off ( the elderly lady was clearly very sick and she was bald and was shamed very loudly). I tried to ask the staff to be friendly and explai that not all are used to travelleing and got loud abuse as a response.

Finally found a kind of restaurant which seemed ok - not a nice selection of food places in the airport - aaaaaan they only took cash 😳 in 2026!!!

Warning to all passengers: if you feel airport staff in this airport talking bad about you behind your back, don’t even doubt as they actually do it!

I was just insulted today by Turkish-speaking security staff who assumed, based on my appearance(green eyes, light brown hair), that I would not understand Turkish.

I came to a scanner at the security check and after an unsuccessful attempt a man, operating it, said in turkish: “olmadı” =“it didn’t work” and without saying anything to me just waved me away to a security lady.

This security lady asked me if i prefer German or English language and i said: i prefer German.

Afterwards i was silently following her instructions in German as anyone would do during this simple and routine process. She asked me to raise my hands, turn around and raise my feet one by one, which i did as instructed.

During above procedure all of a sudden she told to her colleague: “Öküz bir kadin” = which means something like “uneducated stupid cow woman”. The other colleague asked: “hangi Kadin?” = “which woman?”. And she responded “bu” = “this one” pointing at me.

Insulting people thinking they would not understand when nowadays many people including myself speak 4-5 languages is as low and despicable as it only can be.

I can only imagine what all the other things are spoken there behind people’s backs. Besides calling someone a cow who is 1/2 of a size of the insulter is at least ridiculous.

I can only confirm that all the negative reviews for staff of this airport are fair and well deserved.

Avoid like the plague. As being a "Berliner" I am ashamed for this airport being associated with my City

Terrible, didn’t give us right information didn’t let us on for doing what they said

If you travel here from outside the EU don’t bother. Not a great way to start a weekend away getting thoroughly pissed off waiting over 2 hours for passport control, all the EU passport holders flew through. They had two few passport control agents and they were painfully slow and disappeared on frequent breaks, no sense of urgency at all. Our pre booked taxi left without us. I am never flying into Berlin airport again!!!! It says something when everyone seems to have the same issues. Berlin Airport, surely time to change the management at the top?