Berlin Schoenefeld Airport

[Helen]

I flew back from Berlin Schoenefeld to Liverpool the other week with easyjet.

Dead easy to get to on the train from central station Berlin Tiergarten/Zoo (lifts, bought ticket the day before €2.80 for me, €2 for bike - don't forget to clip it, no steps on train, cycle carriages (but I had to wait for an ignorant young woman to shift so I could put my bike where it's supposed to go by the tip-up seats.)

Schoenefeld had lots of grassy outdoor space to doss and sort out your bags.

However:
I queued at easyjet desks downstairs for ages, only to be told the Liverpool desk was upstairs. This info never appeared on the screens. Had to lug bike and bags on trolley in lift upstairs and wait for desk to open. No proper seats to wait.

Before you're allowed to the check-in desk area upstairs, you have to put your bags through X-ray, although you can still keep your bottle of water here. (This must be emptied before second security check after Passport Control. And make sure all your battery stuff is handy for them to inspect. I had to forage through carry-on pannier for iPod, radio and headtorch.)

At check-in the woman rang a colleague "Problem - bike not in cardboard". I showed her the easyjet website printout stating "box or bag". She very reluctantly accepted this and said "Next time cardboard". As if I could get any! Impossible, so I would just have to use a bag again and stress that I knew I was sending bike at my own risk, as I do 10 times a year.

[Gotte]

I went to Berlin Shoenefeld last year, and found it excellent. Easyjet were pretty well what you'd expect from a budget airline, though not particularly bad. We just had to wait in line a lot. Our bikes were in tough bags, with cardboard around them, so had no problems with the desk staff. We stayed at the Holiday Inn just down the road on the way out, and on the way back, after cycling down the Elbe to Dreden, then catching the train back to central Berlin, cycled back to the airport via the Mauerweg, which was difficult to follow in places, and pretty urban, though really interesting, as it followed the where the Berlin Wall used to be (we even saw some of it in sections in a builders yard, used as division for the various piles of gravel) Here;s an image:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3457/321 ... 4d21_o.jpg

One of the good things about Schoenefeld is that it still has left luggage lockers, in which we stored our heavy bikebags, lagging and cardboard. Apparently they're being taken out of a lot of airports as they are considered a security risk.

[Fox]

We used Easyjet and flew bristol to schonefield using plastic bike bags it was great. But we had a terrible experience trying to get home after our holiday. Easyjet let us check in and told us to take the Bikes to large luggage. That's where the problems started as they didn't fit through the scanning machine. We had to undo all the bags we were told to take both wheels off. Deflate the tyres. As you know we couldnt get the rear wheel off. They went though the scanner and then they sent them back to us. Saying they needed a box go and see easyjet information. Nobody was at the Information so we went back to the check in girl but she couldn't help. Security told us that we would have to go back to Berlin and get boxes and put our bikes in storage and rebook flights. It was a totally horrible experience. Then at the last minute one women came over and said it's ok they can go. By this time the wheels was off the bags open and we had no way to reseal them. We tried to tie the plastic up. £40 each bike each way with Easyjet. So tell me how do you get a box when your touring?

[Cyril Haearn]

Allow a bit of time, in Berlin you can get anything (except Sundays)

Ask the airline beforehand and get everything black on white

[Steve]

Similar traumatic experience for me at Schoenefeld in 2016 - forced to pay 30 euros for a huge cardboard box at the airport when the CTC poly bag had been fine on the way out. Easyjet never replied to my complaint.