diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 46a393d5..5d26d711 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -5,6 +5,10 @@ What's new in psycopg 2.9
 -------------------------
 
 - Dropped support for Python 3.4, 3.5 (:tickets:#1000, #1197).
+- Reclassified SQLSTATE connection exceptions (08XXX) as
+  `~psycopg2.errors.OperationalError` (subclass of previously used
+  `~psycopg2.errors.DatabaseError`) (:ticket:`#1148`).
+
 
 What's new in psycopg 2.8.6
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
diff --git a/psycopg/error_type.c b/psycopg/error_type.c
index 37b4d4ae..60b2c48e 100644
--- a/psycopg/error_type.c
+++ b/psycopg/error_type.c
@@ -65,6 +65,8 @@ base_exception_from_sqlstate(const char *sqlstate)
     switch (sqlstate[0]) {
     case '0':
         switch (sqlstate[1]) {
+        case '8': /* Class 08 - Connection Exception */
+            return OperationalError;
         case 'A': /* Class 0A - Feature Not Supported */
             return NotSupportedError;
         }
diff --git a/tests/test_errors.py b/tests/test_errors.py
index bd3e7fd6..ec2950c5 100755
--- a/tests/test_errors.py
+++ b/tests/test_errors.py
@@ -62,6 +62,13 @@ class ErrorsTests(ConnectingTestCase):
         with self.assertRaises(KeyError):
             errors.lookup('XXXXX')
 
+    def test_connection_exceptions_backwards_compatibility(self):
+        err = errors.lookup('08000')
+        # connection exceptions are classified as operational errors
+        self.assert_(issubclass(err, errors.OperationalError))
+        # previously these errors were classified only as DatabaseError
+        self.assert_(issubclass(err, errors.DatabaseError))
+
     def test_has_base_exceptions(self):
         excs = []
         for n in dir(psycopg2):