Originally Posted by
El Bunto
Sadly for their employees, airlines go bust every day. I think the main academic interest in Air Berlin would be as to why it has been allowed to stagger on with such prodigious losses for so long instead of folding earlier. How many possible start-ups has it deterred or prevented whilst dragging itself along zombie-like? Not good for the market or for long-term employment.
Yes, but if it was Monarch (as indeed it was last year) PPRuNe would be all over it. Perhaps the site is just too UK-centric.
It is amazing that AB even still exists given the enormous losses it has stacked up over so many years now, and it;s very sad to see it now, compared to the heady days 15-odd years ago when Joachim Hunold was honing it into a real competitor to the likes of Ryanair and Easyjet.
Where did it all go wrong? Was it on Hunold's watch, when he was turning the carrier into a low-cost, but high service business carrier, alongside it's traditional leisure business, or was it as a result of taking on LTU, and getting into long haul?
Hopefully AB will get sorted out and continue to operate on it's own account, rather than become another Lufthansa Group "brand".