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The German airline said the daily flight was popular with travellers and has helped to increase advance bookings between June and October by 23%.

The new service was supposed to connect Birmingham with Berlin's new Willy Brandt Airport but is now operating to and from the city's Tegel Airport after the opening of the new airport was delayed until next year.

Lufthansa also introduced a new service between Birmingham and Hamburg at the end of March.

Christian Schindler, Lufthansa general manager UK & Ireland, said: 'The addition of the new direct flights to Berlin and Hamburg reaffirms the importance of Birmingham within the Lufthansa network. Our investment and development at Berlin provides new opportunities for Lufthansa to increase its offering to Birmingham passengers.'

The new Birmingham-Berlin service reflects the fact that the German capital is becoming an increasingly popular destination with international travellers.

New figures released by the Berlin-Brandenburg Statistics Office show that a total of 665,167 people visited Berlin in February, an increase of 13% compared with the same month last year, and spent 1,427,746 nights there - a rise of 14.5%.

One of the main attractions in February was the annual Berlinale film festival, which saw an increase of 12.9% in visitor numbers to 242,385.

The number of Berlin visitors from Switzerland rose by almost a quarter (24.8%) compared with last year, while visitor numbers from Russia and Austria were up by more than a fifth (20.2%).

However, the German capital seems to be particularly popular with tourists from the Arab Gulf States, whose numbers increased by more than three-quarters (77.1%). Visitor numbers from Turkey rose by nearly two-thirds (65%) while those from the Ukraine increased by 58.5%.

The number of Latvians visiting Berlin was up by 46%, while the number of Estonians rose by 41.9% and visits from the Slovak Republic saw an increase of 43.1%.

Verena Vogt