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Queuing for the start of the holiday: passengers at Berlin Brandenburg International Airport
Photo: Christoph Soeder / picture alliance / dpa
At the beginning of the autumn break, there were unusually long queues in front of the counters at Berlin Brandenburg International Airport (BER).
A video by the journalist Christine Kensche, which has been shared many times on Twitter, shows people waiting across the check-in halls.
Some vacationers were worried about missing their flight.
The »Tagesspiegel« describes similar impressions from the airport.
He reports, among other things, of a woman and her daughter who missed their flight even though they were there three hours before departure.
An airport spokesman in Berlin confirmed the dpa news agency that there was "massive rush until around 9:30 a.m." with waiting times that sometimes lasted for hours.
It cannot be ruled out that some of them may not have reached their plane.
In the early afternoon, according to a dpa reporter, it was already quieter in the airport building.
Accordingly, there were queues especially before the security check, but no chaotic conditions.
"Everyone works hard and does their job as best they can," said the spokesman.
A high number of passengers is expected again for Sunday.
It is becoming noticeable that more and more vaccinated people now want to go on vacation again.
Therefore, a large number of visitors can still be expected.
According to the spokesman, the reason for the long queues was bottlenecks at the check-ins.
In Corona times, the processes would take significantly longer, for example because of the control of vaccination passports.
The airport spokesman appealed to travelers: "Be there two hours early." When checking in, vacationers should have their papers and vaccination card to hand immediately in order to keep waiting times short.
Corona special regulations slow down processes
The airport in Frankfurt am Main also had a large number of visitors at the start of the autumn holidays.
A spokesman for the airport operator Fraport said the terminals were well filled and there could be occasional waiting times.
However, operations are regulated.
After around 120,000 passengers on Friday, the airport expected around 130,000 travelers each for Saturday and Sunday.
Because of the many special corona regulations, Fraport recommended careful travel preparation and "keep all necessary documents to hand at all times".
Before the corona pandemic, around 220,000 flight passengers were counted in Frankfurt am Main every day during the autumn holidays.
In Hesse and also in the two neighboring federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, the two-week autumn vacation began on Friday.
At Hamburg Airport there were also occasional queues at check-in in the morning.
According to a spokeswoman for the airport, the number of air travelers during the autumn break sometimes increases in the early morning and on the weekend in a few hours.
However, this quickly dissolves again afterwards.
With passenger numbers of around 30,000 people per day, the airport experiences the strongest rush since the beginning of the pandemic on the autumn holiday weekends.
According to the spokeswoman, the airport had already expected this and indicated it on its website, among other things.
Many travelers would then have used the evening before check-in.
The airport and the federal police try to prevent queues by opening the check-in and security gates very early.
bbr / dpa
