The Galaxy had its first appearance at Tempelhof on 17 September 1971, when an aircraft of the USAF's 436th Military Airlift Wing flew in from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, United States, to participate in that year's "Day of Open House" static exhibition.

The explosion immediately ignited the celluloid, turning the film shelter under the northern office wing of the new terminal into a furnace and making it impossible to enter for several weeks.

In accordance with the Yalta agreements, Zentralflughafen Berlin-Tempelhof was turned over to the United States Army 2nd Armored Division on 2 July 1945 by the Soviet Union as part of the American occupation sector of Berlin.

In July 1994, with President Clinton in attendance, the British, French, and American air and land forces in Berlin were deactivated in a ceremony on the Four Ring Parade field at McNair Barracks.

[30] Following the end of the Berlin Blockade, AOA launched additional dedicated scheduled services linking Tempelhof with Hamburg Fuhlsbüttel and Düsseldorf Lohausen from 6 March and 1 June 1950 respectively.

It entailed transferring responsibility for processing all commercial flights to West Berlin's city government, including the operation and maintenance of associated passenger, cargo and mail handling facilities.

[23][40][41] (This included an ex-Transair Vickers Viscount 700[42] belonging to its newly formed independent rival British United Airways, which was damaged beyond repair on 30 October 1961 at Frankfurt Rhein-Main Airport at the end of a passenger flight that had originated at Tempelhof.

[36] The greater range and higher cruising speed of the 802 series enabled BEA to inaugurate a non-stop London Heathrow – Berlin Tempelhof service on 1 November 1965.

[48] On 2 January 1960, Air France, which had served Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich, Nuremberg and its main base at Paris Le Bourget/Orly during the previous decade with DC-4, Sud-Est Languedoc and Lockheed Constellation/Super Constellation piston-engined equipment, shifted its entire Berlin operation to Tegel because Tempelhof's runways were too short to permit the introduction of the Sud-Aviation Caravelle, their new short-haul jet, with a viable payload.

[23][33][49][50] (Air France's Caravelle IIIs lacked thrust reversers that would have permitted them to land safely on Tempelhof's short runways with a full commercial payload.

[35][59][60] (To qualify for the subsidised rate under this system, the passenger was required to purchase a round-trip ticket for a scheduled internal German flight from/to West Berlin in Germany.

London Gatwick-based UK independent Overseas Aviation (CI) was among the first airlines the Allied Air Attachés in Bonn[nb 5] licensed to operate a series of regular charter flights from West Berlin.

[36] 1964 was also the year US supplemental Saturn Airways began operating a comprehensive inclusive tour (IT) charter flight programme from Tempelhof under contract to local package holiday consolidator Flug-Union Berlin,[nb 6] using Douglas DC-6A/Cs and DC-7Cs.

Boeing had leased the aircraft to Pan Am for a special flight from Frankfurt to Berlin to demonstrate to the airline the 727's ability to operate from Tempelhof's short runways.

[30][54][55][76] Pan Am's move put BEA at a considerable competitive disadvantage, especially on the busy Berlin–Frankfurt route where the former out-competed the latter with both modern jet planes as well as a higher flight frequency.

Sections of the local press dubbed the contrasting strategies of the two main protagonists plying the internal German routes from Berlin – estimated to be worth £15–20 million in annual revenues – the Dinner oder Düsen?

[23][28][31][34][81][82] The introduction of Pan Am's 727s to the Berlin market represented a major step change because of the aircraft's ability to carry more passengers than any other contemporary aircraft type used by scheduled carriers in the short-haul Berlin market, and its ability to take off from and land on Tempelhof's short runways with a full commercial payload as only light fuel loads were required on the short internal German services.

[nb 10][49] Within two years of Pan Am's introduction of jet equipment on the bulk of its internal German services from/to West Berlin, its market share rose from 58% to 68%.

[nb 11][23] BEA's re-equipment of its Berlin fleet with brand-new One-Eleven 500 jets was central to the airline's competitive strategy to regain ground lost to Pan Am's 727s.

Over this period, the French airline's market share halved from 9% to less than 5% despite having withdrawn from Tegel–Düsseldorf in summer 1964[nb 13] and concentrated its limited resources on Tegel–Frankfurt and Tegel–Munich to maximise the competitive impact on the latter two routes.

To reverse growing losses on its Berlin routes resulting from load factors as low as 30%, Air France decided to withdraw from the internal German market entirely and instead enter into a joint venture with BEA.

This arrangement entailed the latter taking over the former's two remaining German domestic routes to Frankfurt and Munich and operating these with its own aircraft and flightdeck crews from Tempelhof.

The resulting fare increases that were intended to recover the airlines' higher operating costs caused by steeply rising jet fuel prices led to a further drop in demand.

This in turn resulted in a major contraction of Pan Am's and BEA's/British Airways's internal German operations, necessitating a reduction in both airlines' Berlin-based fleets and workforces in an attempt to contain growing losses these once profitable routes generated by the mid-1970s.

In 1996, the mayor of Berlin Eberhard Diepgen, Brandenburg minister-president Manfred Stolpe and the federal transport minister Wissmann established the so-called "Consensus resolution".

Plans for the future would include for example a Berlin airlift museum in the old terminal building, commercial space for innovative businesses, new housing and industrial areas, sports facilities, and parks.

At precisely four and a half minutes before midnight, the last two airplanes – a historical Junkers Ju 52 and an airlift "raisin bomber" Douglas DC-3 – took off in parallel, waved their wings, and flew off south-east to Schönefeld airport.

[129] In a 2014 Referendum, Berlin's citizens decided to preserve the entire space of the park and prohibit any kind of development by law, thus putting an end to both construction and landscaping plans.

Although the attack had severely damaged the plane, necessitating the shutdown of engines number three and four, the pilot in command of the aircraft managed to carry out a safe emergency landing at Tempelhof Airport.

[144] In 1981, a LOT Polish Airlines Antonov AN-24 operating an internal scheduled service from Katowice to Gdańsk was hijacked en route and forced to land at Tempelhof.