German carrier airberlin is to boost its network of overseas flights on the domestic route to the North Sea island of Sylt during summer 2015 with a brand new link from Nuremberg starting in May 2015 and additional flights on a number of existing routes.

Sylt is an island in northern Germany, part of Nordfriesland district, Schleswig-Holstein, and well known for the distinctive shape of its shoreline. It belongs to the North Frisian Islands and is the largest island in North Frisia. The northernmost island of Germany, it is known for its tourist resorts, notably Westerland, Kampen and Wenningstedt-Braderup, as well as for its 40 km long sandy beach.

airberlin is already the prominent carrier serving Sylt Airport and in 2013 had a 79.7 per cent share of capacity from the facility, also known as Westerland, a well-known part of the municipality of Sylt. This year, following a reduction in Lufthansa’s schedule to the island, the airberlin share has grown to 85.8 per cent.

"There are long established ties between airberlin and Sylt Airport. We are thrilled that Germany's second-largest airline is again expanding its services to Sylt and, as a result, will enable even greater numbers of holidaymakers to enjoy convenient travel from a variety of airports in Germany and Switzerland. This makes short travel times for holidays or mini-breaks even easier," said Peter Douven, managing director, Sylt Airport.

The introduction of the Nuremburg – Sylt route from May 1, 2015 will represent the return of a city pair previously flown by airberlin in summer 2010. Alongside the new link, the German carrier will boost in principal year-round connection to the island from Dusseldorf to 16 times weekly, while one additional rotation will be added from Munich and Stuttgart growing seasonal flights to four and five times weekly, respectively. With services from Berlin and Zurich each remaining unchanged at twice weekly, in total airberlin will offer 30 flights into Sylt each week during the summer.

"Our guests truly enjoy spending their summer holidays in Sylt. So it is our pleasure to offer our guests an even greater number of connections to the German holiday island. The new connections also mean that we will broaden the flight services operating out of Nuremberg Airport", said Götz Ahmelmann, chief commercial officer, airberlin.

Alongside the operations of airberlin, Sylt is also linked to the German mainland by seasonal flights by Lufthansa CityLine (Frankfurt and Munich), Syltair (Hamburg) and AIS Airlines (Bremen).

In our analysis, below, we look in greater detail at annual airline scheduled capacity to Sylt over the past ten years. The data shows that capacity hit its highest level in 2011 when airberlin also offered connections from Cologne/Bonn, Frankfurt and Münster Osnabrück.

Data provided by