[FRANKFURT] Berlin's Tegel airport has subsisted by chance alone, defying the odds as passenger growth outpaces every other major hub in Western Europe.

The airport reported passenger growth of 7.9 per cent last year, more than twice the pace of London Heathrow, the busiest hub in Europe. Compared with Frankfurt's 0.9 per cent advance, Tegel's passenger inflow was downright explosive.

Tegel's boom is also its swan song. An hour's drive south of the hexagon building lies a 4.5 billion-euro (S$7.8 billion) replacement hub fit to accommodate the millions of tourists flowing into Germany's capital. The only catch: the new airport should have taken over two years ago, before technical faults derailed the plan. That's given a new lease of life to the 1970s Tegel beloved by passengers for its short distances as much as it is ridiculed for a lack of shopping.