Berlin: Tegel Airport

Tegel Airport (TXL) is such a big airport and divided into smaller sectors for different airlines and flights. This is why shopping out there might turn out a disaster if you're not familiar with the airport. For the pros and cons, the shopping is the main con while other things work quite okay by my experience.

Getting to the airport

I really recommend the taxi as it's just about 20 euros from the city centre. The taxi driver was really helpful checking from his data where my check in was located and drove as close as possible.

Another trip I used the underground (U-bahn) and bus. The fastest way to get close to the airport is underground. You have to take the blue line (U7) going to Rathaus Spandau (nor to Rudow if you're coming outside the city centre) and get out in Jakub-Kaiser Platz. Then you have to take a bus for one stop.

At the airport (Leaving Berlin)

When you've once done the check in and security checks, you don't get to the other parts of the airport. So you have to shop before that as the shop after was a big letdown with just some candy  - no souvenirs (not saying the are usually great). The candy selection is quite poor anyway. So shop before going to check in. I did that the second time. I was still a bit disappointed with the shops when compared to airports like Oslo Gardermoen and Copenhagen Kastrup.

The caf'e wasn't great either and for bigger hunger you would leave hungry and angry. So there really weren't great reasons to come too early to the airport.

The check in can not be made very early but otherwise no problem with that. The bag drop was fine as well as the security check.

At the airport (Arriving)

Check the right room and line for getting your bag as there are several rooms. The officers don't always give you right advise so focus on what is going on. There's not much more worth to say and for getting to the city, use the advise given above (the part with title Getting to the airport).