István Szabo
István Szabo is Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer of Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER), Germany’s third-largest airport, serving approximately 26 million passengers a year. He took up the role in September 2025, leading operational management, AI strategy and organisational transformation.
Before joining BER, he spent 15 years at Budapest Airport, latterly as Chief Passenger Services Officer. He has worked extensively with low-cost carriers on turnaround optimisation and contributes regularly to industry discussions on passenger experience, airport efficiency and the operational application of AI. He holds the conviction that operational excellence and commercial performance are the same problem viewed from two angles.
ArticleDesigning for airport capacity constraint before it arrives
International Airport Summit speaker István Szabo, explains why Berlin Brandenburg Airport is using its current spare capacity to improve passenger flow now - before future growth, tighter schedules and new processes create delays, longer queues and pressure on operations and revenue.