The historic fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago in Berlin did not only mark the beginning of the end of the East/West divide in Germany. It also marked the end of Interflug, the East German national carrier.
Based in Berlin Schönefeld Airport, Interflug operated to Warsaw Pact, communist, and other allied nations around the world. It utilized a fleet of Russian-made aircraft, including Ilyushin Il-18, Ilyushin Il-62, Tupolev Tu-134, and Tupolev Tu-154 in its final years of operation.
Like most state-run industries in East Germany, Interflug was highly unprofitable. After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, many airlines saw an opporutnity to capitalize on Berlin and Interflug’s still robust route map. By March 1990, Lufthansa agreed to acquire 26% of Interflug, but the deal was blocked by antitrust authorities as discouraging competition.
British Airways also made an offer for Interflug, bu that deal fizzed and BA formed Deutsche BA instead, a Munich-baed budget carrier that was eventually sold to Air Berlin in 2006 and fully folded into Air Berlin in 2008.
When German reunification formally occurred on October 3, 1990, Interflug, like all state-owned property in East Germany, came under the control of Treuhandanstalt (literally, “Trust Agency”). The goal: privatize it. But by early 1991 no investors could be found and the airline was liquidated in April 1991. At the time, Interflug had 2,900 employees and 20 aircraft. Once other airlines realized that Interflug would dissolve if no one invested..they held back investments, preferring instead to reduce competition and develop the former East German market with their own planes and employees.
Its final flight was from Vienna to Berlin on a Tu-134 on April 30, 1991.
CONCLUSION
The fall of the Berlin Wall directly unleashed a ripple effect that eventually toppled Interflug, the flag carrier of the DDR. 30 years later, Berlin still doesn’t have a new airport…
Did you ever fly Interflug? Do you miss it?
image: RuthAS / Wikimedia Commons
A post of the uniqueness of pre unification Berlin air travel would be awesome.
I hope there wasn’t a first class. Proletariat class?
I bet the DDR could have finished Berlin – Brandenberg airport by now.
Interesting and I would have liked to fly them at least once. I was in the DDR twice before they opened the wall and found it absolutely fascinating. Because very little had changed there since WWII it still had the atmosphere of how Germany was around 1930/40. It was an absolutely unique place.
“The fall of the Berlin Wall directly unleashed a ripple effect that eventually toppled Interflug”
Interflug and quite a few other airlines as well…
Yes, I flew them on a charter flight, LGW-LEJ in July 1981 on TU 134.
Operationally it was unusual as the routing was north to Danish airspace and then due south.
The flight was for circa. 20 pax, all on a dirt cheap all inclusive coach tour of Silbermann church organs in Saxony, staying at the newly built Swedish hotels in the DDR.
The plane tankered everything to LGW for its inbound flight.
I doubt if the revenue earned even covered landing fees.
Great trip!
Flew its successor TU 154 on Aeroflot a year later.
I flew Interflug in the summer of 1980 from SXF – BUD. I was a student at the time so time rich and cash poor and I had set off to visit a number of places in Europe.
Interflug used to sell tickets in West Berlin and you took the U bahn to Rudow where you boarded a special bus to SXF that saved you anything to do with East German border controls and the fares were cheap so it was quite attractive. At the same time you could only go west from the then relatively new Berlin Tegel or the now closed Templehof so that was a very long way around. I think the bus to SXF still runs but without the Grenztruppen.
At Rudow we had to show passports and tickets for the flight to board the bus and there were two DDR Grenztruppen aboard. We were waved through the border and on arrival at SXF segregated from regular departing passengers in the terminal but not on the plane which was a TU134, there was even a separate baggage check in area and of course boarding cards were issued back then. SXF looked exactly the same approaching it from the front as it does now except that these days the signage is brighter. At boarding time we were walked to the plane by more Grenztruppen and they made sure we were all aboard before others were allowed to start boarding. They waited at the bottom of the steps until the door was closed.
The seats were hard but I don’t remember being short of leg room. The crew seemed universally unfriendly to everyone. The TU134 was noisy and there wasn’t much service but then the flight only took just over an hour. I remember some very weak orange squash and a film wrapped cheese sandwich which was dry – maybe Lufthansa took the recipe because it was like they serve today but it was possibly fresher.
Arrival at BUD was fine, the landing was fast and the braking hard. There was almost a smile and auf wiedersehen from the crew if you listened very carefully. Arriving in BUD was probably easier than most places in the eastern block, you didn’t as a westener encounter the same levels of suspicion as you did in other places and they were a lot more friendly and open.
On my return I flew Malev back to LHR on a TU154 so that was my only experience of Interflug who were OK and I would have flown them again had the opportunity arisen. The Malev crew were much more friendly than Interflug and my main memory of the flight was that they kept filling up glasses of cherry brandy for everyone which is perhaps why that’s just about all I remember about them. I would have certainly flown them again too had the opportunity arisen.
Compared to the same, same of flying with European airlines on shorthaul today flying back then was far more interesting!
Thanks for that! Really interesting and well written.
I took almost exactly the opposite of your trip back in the 80s. Inbound to BUD was on Malev from FRA on a TU-154. Then we went BUD- SXF on Interflug’s 134. I was so excited to be on a Soviet type that I don’t recall the service at all.
@Phil Duncan
Great story. I flew Malév and CSA quite a few times in the 70s/80s but Interflug only once ( to Warsaw). I wish I’d kept better records of some of those trips, although tickets/receipts sometimes surface when cleaning out storage boxes in the garage.