BERLIN — Meng Meng and Jiao Qing — two giant pandas — arrived on Saturday to fanfare in Berlin, where they will spend the next 15 years living in a lavish $10 million, Chinese-style compound at the Berlin Zoo.

The German capital has been excited over the arrival of the pandas, and they were received at the airport by the city’s mayor and the Chinese ambassador to Germany after safely weathering the long flight from China.

Mitigating the discomfort of the 12-hour flight, the pandas traveled the animal equivalent of first-class, receiving stately treatment on their voyage from Chengdu in southwestern China.

"They slept a bit, munched on their bamboo and nibbled on some cookies,” Andreas Ochs, a Berlin veterinarian who accompanied the couple, told reporters at Berlin’s Schönefeld airport shortly after arrival. The bears’ entourage also included two Chinese zookeepers and a gaggle of journalists.