This is a bigger game between Lufthansa and Etihad, Air Berlin is the bargaining chip.
Article in Flight Global last week.
Lufthansa chief lists obstacles to further Air Berlin integration
17 Mar 2017 16:15 GMT+00:00
Michael Gubisch (London)
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Lufthansa Group's chief executive Carsten Spohr has indicated potential interest in a takeover of Air Berlin, but identified three main obstacles: the Oneworld carrier's debt burden, its cost base, and potential anti-trust issues at airports.
"If these three topics are resolvable, one can imagine further steps," Spohr said during a results briefing on 16 March, having been asked about the possibility of a complete takeover of Air Berlin. "Today, we still have no solution for these three topics."
Talking through the three hurdles that would need to be overcome, Spohr commented: "Air Berlin has a high debt burden which, I think, no owner, of course, would want to carry."
The airline's cost base, meanwhile, is "not competitive", he says. "Otherwise, it [Air Berlin] would not be in the situation it is in today."
He stresses that cost issues span a range of areas: "I am not necessarily talking about staff costs."
Spohr also acknowledges that anti-trust concerns would arise at "several" German airports "if Eurowings – which mostly is number one with Lufthansa already today – were to completely go together with Air Berlin".
In 2016, Lufthansa arranged with Air Berlin shareholder Etihad Airways to wet-lease 38 Air Berlin Airbus A320-family jets for five years.
Thirty-three of these aircraft were earmarked for Eurowings, to aid that carrier's expansion.
Air Berlin, meanwhile, is halving its fleet to some 75 aircraft and concentrating on scheduled operations from Dusseldorf and the German capital.
Services to Mediterranean destinations – bar Italy – are being transferred to Air Berlin's Austrian affiliate Niki, which is to form part of a new European leisure carrier being set up in partnership with Etihad and TUI.
That tour group's German-based flight operation, TUIfly, will also be part of the new leisure carrier.
Meanwhile Lufthansa and Etihad are signalling wider partnership:
Etihad's co-operation ambitions with Lufthansa, first signalled in December through a planned codeshare on a small selection of routes, was detailed at a joint press conference in Abu Dhabi at the start of February. While co-operation remains limited – the two unveiled new agreements in the fields of catering and maintenance – they have wider ambitions.
"This partnership is the platform for a much wider strategic collaboration between our two organisations," says Etihad Aviation Group chief James Hogan, adding that the tie-up is the "most significant non-equity partnership with an airline we have ever announced".