Germany Opens Berlin to Emirates, but Caps It at Seven Flights a Week

On September 10, 2026, Germany agreed to let a UAE airline serve a fifth German airport, clearing the way for Emirates to fly between Dubai and Berlin Brandenburg Airport. The concession came in a joint declaration signed during UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s state visit to Berlin.

The new flights are capped at seven a week, German Transport Minister Steffen Bilger said, and the airline may not fly on from the new airport to third countries. Its four existing German airports stay frozen at today’s frequencies.

What the two governments agreed

The joint declaration says Germany agreed to add a fifth landing point to the route schedule. A UAE national airline may fly an agreed number of frequencies there, on top of four existing German points that are capped at their current frequencies.

Neither the declaration nor Bilger’s statement names Emirates or Berlin. Berlin Governing Mayor Kai Wegner filled that gap after meeting the UAE president, announcing daily Emirates long-haul flights at BER.

The Tagesspiegel reported, citing government sources, that Emirates had picked Berlin over Stuttgart, whose mayor had lobbied for the slot the same day.

Emirates already flies to Frankfurt, Munich, Düsseldorf and Hamburg. In June it asked for Berlin and Stuttgart, saying it would spend more than €100 million a year to run daily Boeing 777-300ER flights to both cities if Germany approved them.

The aviation concession was one piece of a wider package. The UAE announced €40 billion of investment in Germany during the visit, the first state visit to Germany by a UAE president.

Why one daily flight is such a fight

International airline service runs on bilateral air services agreements, which spell out which airports each country’s airlines may serve and how often. Germany’s deal with the UAE allowed four German points, and Emirates was never willing to drop one of them to get Berlin, so the capital stayed off its map.

The real prize is connecting passengers. Of the 2.36 million people Emirates carried to and from Germany in 2025, 60% flew onward through Dubai International, the airline says. Its top German markets included Australia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

That is the traffic Lufthansa wants on its own network, usually a domestic hop to Frankfurt or Munich followed by a long-haul leg. A Lufthansa Group spokesperson told aeroTELEGRAPH the decision “shifts value creation and jobs to the Gulf” and strains the domestic routes that feed German hubs.

“This federal government is scoring too many own goals,” the spokesperson added, in comments made in German.

The services union Verdi called it “a questionable deal at the expense of domestic jobs,” aeroTELEGRAPH also reported. Brandenburg’s transport minister, Robert Crumbach, said instead that BER would no longer be disadvantaged on international connections.

What Berlin gets, and what it does not

Berlin is Germany’s largest city, but its airport is overwhelmingly European. More than 85% of BER’s international connectivity stays within Europe, Emirates said in June, citing OAG schedule data.

Emirates will not have the Berlin to Dubai route to itself. Condor starts Berlin to Dubai flights on October 25 and Eurowings on November 1 for the winter season, dpa reported. Emirates had noted in June that Berlin’s existing Dubai links are narrowbody and seasonal only.

The ban on onward rights means Emirates cannot sell tickets between Berlin and a third country such as the US. Every passenger on the route will be flying to or from Dubai, whether they stop there or connect onward.

On paper, Berlin brings Emirates level with its Gulf rival. Qatar Airways already serves Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Düsseldorf and Hamburg, according to its own route pages.

The timing is political too. The decision lands ten days before Berlin’s September 20 state election, in which the leading candidates of all the major parties back more long-haul flights at BER, dpa noted.