A few days abroad, a visit to relatives - at Easter there are many reasons to travel, and the vacations make it easier. Because many people are drawn to faraway places, this is often accompanied by stress. In Berlin and Brandenburg, however, the holidays got off to a mostly smooth start. Despite record numbers, operations also ran smoothly at the capital's BER airport. And Deutsche Bahn gives tips for train travel in the coming days.

According to a spokeswoman, more than 70,000 passengers arrived or departed at BER within one day for the first time since it opened. On Good Friday, 73,000 passengers were counted, a spokeswoman said Saturday morning. "That's about two-thirds of the passenger numbers counted on a peak day in the pre-Corona year at the then Tegel and Schoenefeld airports."

She said she expects crowds to remain high at both terminals through Easter Monday. "The vacation return wave is expected next weekend." There have been no problems, she said. "So far, things have been running normally," the spokeswoman said. The airport BER had been opened in the fall of 2020.

Until Easter Monday, there could be a total of about 260,000 passengers at the capital airport. At peak times in the morning and evening, there could be queues. Passengers were advised to be in the terminal at least two hours before departure, as usual.

Deutsche Bahn is also expecting another busy day on Easter Monday. "Train traffic continues to run according to plan and stable," said a spokeswoman on Saturday. On Good Friday, there was a heavy travel traffic, on Saturday, probably as expected, somewhat fewer travelers on the road. "From experience, Easter Monday is also a heavy travel day."

She recommended taking a look at DB Navigator, saying the app shows how in demand individual trains are. It could be helpful to look at other times as well, she said. "Travelers who are flexible can check whether they are traveling on Sunday or the Tuesday after Easter." Deutsche Bahn had announced it would run 50 special trains from Maundy Thursday to April 24 on connections that are in high demand, such as between Berlin and Munich or between North Rhine-Westphalia and Berlin.

There were also initially no major disruptions to road traffic on Holy Saturday. Berlin's autobahns were clear, and in Brandenburg there were only minor delays.

On Good Friday, travel traffic in Brandenburg had led to several traffic jams on highways. On the A11, vacation travel to the north triggered a backlog from the Bernau-Süd junction to the A10 (Berliner Ring). Further south on the A10 toward Magdeburg, traffic was slow between the Nuthetal and Michendorf interchanges. On the A12, traffic initially backed up from Müllrose and later from Frankfurt (Oder)-West to the Polish border, but then cleared.

On Maundy Thursday, the backlog on the A12 was up to 40 kilometers long, according to the police, partly because of the return traffic to Poland.

Image by Sammy-Sander