Berlin is a very unique case to study in the aviation industry and landscape. Despite being Germany’s capital city, it is not the main hub of the German national carrier Lufthansa. That is unlike basically every other European nation, where the home base of the national carrier coincides with the capital city. Despite that, the German Ministry of Transport has been historically defensive of allowing carriers like Emirates to operate into Berlin. Emirates, however, is now upping the pressure with the public statement.
In this post:
- Why Emirates Wants Access to Berlin and Stuttgart
- Why Emirates Still Doesn’t Have Access to Berlin
- The Push for Access to Berlin and Stuttgart
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Why Emirates Wants Access to Berlin and Stuttgart
The two cities are Berlin and Stuttgart. They are strategic and important for Emirates’ expansion in Europe for different reasons.
Berlin is the capital city and ironically, it is massively underserved on long haul, despite it having a brand new airport in Brandenburg International Airport.
Flying long haul from Berlin in most cases entails a transit in Munich or Frankfurt or another European capital to then hop on a wide-body aircraft.
Most services out of Berlin are in fact to and from other European cities. Emirates highlights in its report that 85% of services are intra-European services out of Berlin. Therefore, meaning that only 15% are long-haul services beyond Europe’s borders.
The city is home to the German government and also to a very rapidly growing and expanding tech industrial sector, which combined make it extremely attractive to Emirates.
Stuttgart, on the other hand, is an industrial city with a focus on automotive production and offers huge opportunities to transport in and out of the area valuable cargo along with passengers, both leisure oriented and corporate.
Why Emirates Still Doesn’t Have Access to Berlin
The German Ministry of Transport has been historically very defensive of allowing foreign carriers, especially long-haul foreign carriers from the Middle East, to fly into Berlin.
The reasoning is that it has been defending very strongly the interests of the German national carrier Lufthansa.
And that is the primary reason why the airport of Berlin, despite it having increased significantly in size since the inauguration of Brandenburg International Airport, remains rather underserved on long-haul services.
Emirates Pushing For Access to Berlin and Stuttgart
In essence, Emirates is pushing hard and putting pressure on the German government to have access to two strategic markets that it still does not have access to in Germany.
Emirates cites a 2012 study by the German Aerospace Center to back its claims of how the addition of its flights would create value for the German economy. However, it is pulling rather outdated data which does not perfectly hold up, and it is heavily skewed in its own favor.
That study stated that having Emirates flights to Berlin and Stuttgart would create close to 1,000 direct and indirect jobs.
Why Emirates is going for this push right now? It’s hard to say. They might see the opportunity with this current administration to get access finally to these two destinations that have been out of reach.
It is also a moment of partial difficulty for Emirates, as the instability in the Middle East has completely flipped the pre-February 2026 status quo. Emirates needs to build up its presence in Europe once again and create trust among passengers and corporate clients.
Nonetheless, the situation remains unchanged at the moment, and we’ll only find out if this push actually becomes something more by waiting and observing closely the evolution of the European aviation space.