Tempelhof Central Airport

(Le Bourget), and Berlin (Tempelhof) were laid out on sites close to the city centres. Because even transport aircraft of the period were relatively light, paved runways were a rarity. Croydon, Tempelhof, and Le Bourget, for example, all operated from grass strips only. Early airports were also major centres…

…is the site of an airport that became well known during the Soviet blockade of West Berlin (1948–49; see Berlin blockade and airlift); the airport was enlarged to serve as the main terminus for regular Allied airlifts of supplies. A statue commemorating the Berlin airlift stands in a park in…

Tempelhof, the main field of the airlift, lost its traditional role as the centre of Berlin’s air traffic during the 1970s. (It closed permanently in 2008.) German reunification brought a general revision of Berlin’s passenger and commercial air traffic pattern. The Berlin-Tegel and Berlin-Schönefeld airports…