UPDATE / A UNIFICATION PRIZE : Once Again, German Skies : The Allied lock on Berlin flights will end as of Wednesday.

For 45 years, the division of Germany dictated that Pan Am, British Airways and Air France provide the only air service between West Germany and West Berlin. Now that the two Germanys are uniting, the foreigners are being shown the door.

Allied control of access to Berlin ends Wednesday, and with it goes the lucrative lock on inter-German air transport that the Western carriers have enjoyed since World War II.

Restoration of full German sovereignty means recovery of the right to exclusive domestic air service. That’s an internationally recognized practice that could nevertheless bring trouble for the Germans if they choose to invoke it.

BONN’S DILEMMA: West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl has repeatedly sought to put European fears of a too-powerful Germany to rest, dismissing claims that the united nation would become an economic superpower no one could compete with. So if Bonn insists on giving the Allied carriers’ business to Lufthansa, the airline in which West Germany’s government owns a majority of shares, it will surely prompt a lot of finger-pointing and grumbling about how quickly united Germany has become an economic bully.

But letting foreign airlines keep the profitable business they’ve built up over 40 years would shackle Lufthansa in the beginning of what is expected to be a hotly contested race for European traffic after 1992, when the 12 nations of the European Community plan to merge their markets.

AIRLINES’ RESPONSE: Bonn’s informal word to the airlines has been that they will have three years in which to scale down and leave. The British are fighting, the French are negotiating and the Americans have decided to take a cash offer and run.

Arguing against being turned out of a thriving business it has built up over the years, British Airways’ manager for Germany, Paul Hopper, pointed to his company’s participation in the Berlin airlift and its long service to the isolated city. British Airways carries more than 1.5 million passengers annually in and out of Berlin.

A state-controlled monopoly in Britain, British Airways is in the midst of a two-front effort to stay in the game. In addition to resisting Bonn’s push to get foreign carriers off the domestic Berlin run, it is reportedly negotiating to buy a 49% interest in Interflug, East Germany’s airline that, after reunification, will be under government control.

Lufthansa applied months ago to buy a 26% share of Interflug, which its spokesman, Rolf-Dieter Grass, insists is not the beginning of a takeover. But British Airways has challenged that sale as anti-competitive, and the West German Cartel Office, an antitrust unit independent of the government, has told Lufthansa that, initially, it is inclined to reject the airline’s bid for a share of Interflug.

Pan Am, leader of the Berlin pack with 2.2 million passengers last year, has given up the fight in return for much-needed cash. Lufthansa has agreed to pay $150 million for Pan Am’s Berlin operations, employees and all, and to lease Pan Am aircraft through the middle of next year.

British Airways and Air France have an incentive that Pan Am doesn’t have to keep their strong position in Berlin: A European Community rule expected in 1993 will allow any European carrier to compete for domestic, as well as international, airline routes.

Pan Am’s deal with Lufthansa serves both airlines, providing the American carrier with capital to invest in other areas of its struggling network while giving Lufthansa a running head start in the race for supremacy in Berlin.

The 74 daily flights that Pan Am operates in and out of Berlin will bear Lufthansa’s LH designation beginning Oct. 28, when the takeover becomes effective with the start of the winter schedule.

Air France presents another complication for the Germans, as Lufthansa has over the years acquired a 49% interest in Euro-Berlin, the Air France subsidiary plying the inter-German air routes. Bonn must pressure Euro-Berlin to pack up with the other Allied carriers if it is to be consistent. But that move will inflict interim damage on Lufthansa as well.

The French and German governments are negotiating over how the dilemma can be resolved.