Thank you Tegel: Berliners bid emotional farewell to Cold War airport

Spectators on the viewing terrace watch as an Air France plane bound for Paris' Charles de Gaulle (CDG) airport, takes off as the the last flight out of Berlin Tegel (TXL) Airport, in Berlin, Germany November 8, 2020. John Macdougall/Pool via REUTERS

BERLIN (Reuters) - Berlin's venerable Tegel airport hosted its final flight on Sunday, a Paris-bound Air France plane that left to cheers and a fountain salute from the terminal's fire engines.

First opened to commercial aviation in 1960, Tegel was one of the main gateways linking West Berlin, an exclave of democratic West Germany deep inside Communist East Germany, with the rest of the world.