Direct Flights from USA to Berlin, Stockholm

Air Berlin flies direct to Berlin Tegel airport from Miami, Chicago, and JFK airports.

Richard,
It has been several years since I researched this, but my German friends were always fond of telling me there is only one daily, non-stop flight from Berlin (out of Tegel) to the US (Newark) and back while there are at least two to Mongolia. I've taken this flight multiple times and on multiple occasions I missed the connection because of congestion in New York airspace. I believe Continental was the airline, but I'm not positive. Hopefully this changes when Berlin's new airport is finished. Good luck to you. TJ

TJ, you should talk to your German friends again, specifically about Air Berlin. In addition to the direct, non-stop flights TO Tegel I mentioned above, there are direct flights FROM Tegel to LAX. We just booked our daughter on one last night.

SAS flies one nonstop every day from Stockholm to both Chicago and Newark. both flights leave between 10:15 and 10:30 am.

And now apparently the opening of the new Brandenburg airport has been delayed indefinitely, probably into 2015: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/17/uk-germany-airport-idUSLNE90G00820130117 but there are direct flights going into Tegal on Air Berlin as I explained above.

Thanks to all who responded on this thread or sent me a PM. The problem is that, given where I live, I was hoping for a nonstop Berlin flight out of Atlanta on Delta or even out of Houston on United or Lufthansa. I can't believe that Lufthansa does not have political reasons a nonstop flight to Berlin.

It is for historical reasons that Berlin is quite underserved. Before the reunification of the two Germanys, Lufthansa was not allowed to fly to Berlin, only the allied countries' airlines were allowed to use the corridors over East German airspace. Therefore Lufthansa has never had a hub in Berlin. After reunification, Lufthansa's presence in Berlin is still weak. Air Berlin has filled out the gap instead of Lufthansa, but being a LCC, they initially did not do long haul flights. Also, due to historical reasons, Berlin is not a very industrial or business heavy city, as it was difficult to get goods on and out. Most traffic to Berlin is therefore lesure traffic. Today, Lufthansa's hubs are Frankfurt, Munich and Dusseldorf.

Christophe, thank you for your response. I knew that Lufthansa had hubs in Frankfurt and Munich, and that Berlin does not have the business concentration that other German cities might have. But--and here I am perhaps showing my ignorance of German politics and thinking too much of how Washington works--I am surprised that Lufthansa does not have some nonstop flights to Berlin just to please the German political establishment.
Checking flights out of Stockholm to the US, I was struck by the limited options and just how much more difficult it is to fly back to the US out of Stockholm than other citites in Europe. Are there in general more flight options to the USA out of Copenhagen?

Yes, there are more options out of Copenhagen (although hardly the choices you'll find for London or Paris). Flights are not run for the primary purpose of pleasing governments. They are run to make money. Routes that are more profitable have more traffic, and routes that are (or are thought to be) less profitable have less traffic. Nothing more sinister than that. For example, there are something like 25 flights a day from the NYC airports nonstop to London (lots of bankers, hedge funds, etc) and only 2 flights a day from the NYC airports nonstop to Honolulu (mostly leisure travelers). With the ascendancy of China, there are more nonstop flights to there from New York than ever before. Etc. All you can do is put your origin and destination cities into Kayak.com, and then use the filters (on the left side of the window) to connection cities, airlines, etc. While Berlin has few nonstops from the US, it has good connections to other European cities, and frequent service from Frankfurt and Munich. I'd do a connection in Germany if you don't want to use Air Berlin, as this means that if you miss your connecting flight to Berlin, you won't have to wait too long for the next one. For Stockholm, particularly if you don't want an early departure, you may have to connect in Newark or Chicago, as posted above.

Obviously, flights are primarily there because of demand, but a few other factors also influence the availability. In the case of Copenhagen/Stockholm, Stockholm actually has more business traffic than Copenhagen, but Copenhagen has significantly more flights. Reason is: SAS, the flag carrier of Denmark, Norway and Sweden has chosen CPH as its main hub, probably due to Copenhagen's more central location in Europe. This decision is obviously not popular with the Swedes, but is probably sensible from an international point of view.