Schönefeld requires an extra cost ticket, the Tegel bus works on your normal AB ticket (day pass or single ride). Having watched the addition of rail service to OAK (and SFO), I don't really see the attraction. In the case of Oakland, the bus was faster, half the cost, and dropped you off closer to the airport. With Tegel, the bus is relatively quick (around 20 minutes from the Hauptbahnhof) — my only complaint is the lack of ventilation and cooling onboard (which is often a problem on trains too).
Quite frankly New York has a similar problem. There is rail service to JFK but requires an extra cost ticket and it's a fairly long trip (moreso if you're taking the subway instead of LIRR). I'd be willing to take a bus if it got me there quicker for less money. Yeah, Newark has rail (but it doesn't run particularly late).
> I'd be willing to take a bus if it got me there quicker for less money.
It won't get you there quicker. A hypothetical non-stop direct bus route from most places in Manhattan to JFK would take around an hour under ideal conditions, about the same as the train already does. And in non-ideal conditions (around rush hour) and with multiple stops along the route, you would be looking at something like 2 hours, and worse on bad days.
It won't get you there quicker. A hypothetical non-stop direct bus route from most places in Manhattan to JFK would take around an hour under ideal conditions, about the same as the train already does. And in non-ideal conditions (around rush hour) and with multiple stops along the route, you would be looking at something like 2 hours, and worse on bad days.
There's a big caveat though: from Midtown. Getting to JFK from elsewhere in Queens (or e.g. Brooklyn) is a pretty circuitous route on the train. A bus could easily do that in less than two hours. On a good day a subway ride into Manhattan might take you half an hour. On a bad day…
I mean, look, I prefer rail, but not by so much that I'd ding Tegel (or Oakland) for not having rail connections. In Oakland the rail connector cost about half a billion dollars and required undoing a bunch of landscaping and road improvements. In the context of Berlin where you're talking about the Brandenberg airport being over budget and oft delayed, I simply don't see Tegel's transit connections as being shameful (or particularly bad).
And that extra ticket costs what, €3.50? The Airport Express can get you from Alexanderplatz to Schönefeld in 20 mins, it takes almost twice that to get to Tegel.
For a single trip ticket, that sounds about right. If you're going to take any other trips that day a day ticket makes more sense and I think the difference is a bit larger.
The Airport Express can get you from Alexanderplatz to Schönefeld in 20 mins, it takes almost twice that to get to Tegel.
The TXL bus takes about twenty minutes from the Hauptbahnhof, and Alexanderplatz is three stops away on the S-Bahn (saving about ten minutes). Transiting to/from the Hbf gives you some extra transit connections as well. And as an added bonus, the TXL bus pretty much drops you at the gate.
