Just in time for the peak summer travel season, Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) has expanded its security queue-busting initiative, BER Runway. Security time slots can be booked up to seven days in advance, an increase from the previous three days.
Berlin Brandenburg Airport was the first airport in Europe to introduce such a scheme in August 2022, allowing passengers to reserve a free-of-charge security time slot, reducing waiting times and improving the airport experience. Since then, more than 800,000 time slots have been booked.
How does BER Runway work?
BER Runway allows passengers who have reserved a time slot to use a dedicated security entrance in Terminal 1. They have a window of ten minutes before and after their booked time to use the facility.
Passengers can make a booking online or via the BER Runway app up to seven days before their flight by entering their flight number, name, and email address. This will update their boarding pass, which can be scanned to access BER Runway.
To ensure passengers can reach their boarding gate on time, the last reservable time slots are one hour before departure for Schengen flights and 1.5 hours before departure for non-Schengen flights. Current non-Schengen destinations from the airport include Delta Air Lines’ seasonal service to New York (JFK) and Iraqi Airways’ flights to Baghdad (BGW) and Erbil (EBL).
Faster through security: As of today, you can reserve a slot for BER Runway 7 days in advance. There is no need to show the QR code anymore. Simply use your boarding pass. It will show whether you have reserved a slot. More details and direct reservation: https://t.co/oD5wsgltyo — BER – Berlin Brandenburg Airport (@berlinairport) June 13, 2023
Earlier this year, Berlin Brandenburg Airport’s Chief Operating Officer, Thomas Hoff Andersson, shared his delight with how the initiative was working, saying,
“BER Runway has established itself successfully and is an integral part of what we have to offer at Berlin Brandenburg Airport. It gives passengers the freedom to choose exactly how long they stay in the airport and therefore reduces travel stress. At the same time, BER Runway enables us to better control the processes at the security checkpoints.”
Reduced waiting times
Using the new security time slot booking facility, the airport hopes that waiting times for passengers will be reduced to just five minutes. After the congestion and delays seen at many airport security areas last summer, this will undoubtedly come as welcome news to passengers traveling over the next few months.
Passenger levels are rising rapidly in the build-up to peak summer, and airports across Germany are expected to see additional disruption from June 12th through June 23rd due to NATO’s Air Defender 23 military exercises. In the face of such disruption, initiatives such as BER Runway can help make the airport experience a little bit more pleasant for passengers.
Source: simpleflying.com