AB are considerably more flexible than the likes of BA.
Certain routes ( med haul) are more or less cast in stone- but the rest of the routes are completely flexible. It is a highly efficient operation designed to be adaptable and it does change on a daily basis. It is far from willy nilly.

Who operates the FK100s? Are those Air Berlin pilots or Germania pilots? With all of the AB expansion, why would Germania pilots not want a piece of that action and leave for AB? Just wondering....

Riker,

All F100's in Germany are operated by Germania (ST) for AB, X3 (Tuifly, former HLX), DI and in their own colour scheme. Not only the drivers, also the FA's come from ST. Remember that the deceased owner of Germania, Dr. Bischoff, transferred the management of ST to AB's Mr. Hunold (his former arch-enemy) on his death bed in a very surprising move.

So in fact, Germania IS kinda part of AB.

Why the pilots don't change to AB? Because AB has no F100 and they would have to apply at AB just like any other pilot from any other airline who does not hold an Airbus of 737NG rating.

Airberlin - STN-GVA winter 2007
 

I overheard two Airberlin managers, talking about Airberlin
doing STN-GVA in late winter 2007.

They were also talking about a daily LPA or TFS in the pipeline.

Theyve always done a GVA in the winter as for liverpool, VLM have just pulled out of that route into LCY bt i dont know if it will work as a point to point route as the train service is good from liverpool itll probably be all onwards if they do try it

LPA is Las Palmas not Liverpool :8

i stand correct, i was tired!:D

Air Berlin soars on Ryanair rumour
 

From RTE News today....

Air Berlin soars on Ryanair rumour
Thursday, 5 July 2007 12:14
Shares in German airline Air Berlin jumped as much as 8.7% this morning on market rumours of acquisition interest from Europe's largest budget airline Ryanair.

Air Berlin said it was not aware of any takeover interest from Ryanair. 'Ryanair has a policy of not commenting on market rumours or speculation,' said a spokesman for Ryanair.

In May, the chief executive of Air Berlin said he was keeping an eye on the consolidating European airline market after snapping up German rivals recently to expand its network with domestic and intercontinental routes.

AdvertisementThe airline listed on the German stock exchange a year ago

Glasgow and BHD could be go
 

Have got wind that AB could pull the plug on there GLA and BHD service out of STN due the high landing fees at the STN. BAA have scraped all discounts for airlines at the airport and landing fees have risen.
AB is not the only one, SkyEurope too are not happy about the increase in fee.

Air Berlin orders B787-8
 

Air Berlin yesterday became the 47th airline customer for the Boeing 787, with the single largest European carrier order for 25 B787-8, with 10 more on option and 15 purchase rights.
Air Berlin plans to use them on new long-haul services.
I guess that they will also replace the LTU long-haul fleet.

That's easy, just move their German services back to Manchester & feed into there.
Let's face it there's precious little competition from Flybe. Only Luftahnsa to take on & their pricing structure is in a different world.

I seriously doubt that AB would consider directs flights from Germany to MAN, GLA or BHD. The flights via STN are fed by six or seven flights to/from Germany and local domestic travellers and still are not brilliantly booked. So there is probably only a handful of pax from each German destination - hardly enough to justify a nonstop service. AB has tried, for example, DUS-MAN nonstop, but it did not work.

VirginBlue - Air Berlin operate Manchester to Hamburg (daily ex.Sat) and Paderborn (4 per week), so your comments are factually incorrect. These two routes have been operating non-stop for a few years so there must be a demand. They did operate both Dusseldorf & Berlin but as you mentioned they didn't perform strong enought.

I meant of course replacing the STN flights with nonstops served from any of the current destinations that feed the STN hub. If there was demand for nonstop flights (like for HAM-MAN or PAD-BOH), Air Berlin would long have offered them.

I think ab should offer some direct services to bhd as there is a lack of german routes from the belfast airports i can only think of berlin so surely they could do dusseldorf which is not served directly the reason most dont travel to germany is because of the not direct flights although easyjet have good loads to berlin.

Also the last couple of times i have travelled with ab it has had good passenger numbers around 80%-90% full on the BHD-STN route(or maybe i have just travelled on their busiset flights?).

I used the direct AB from MAN to both DUS & TXL when they ran. They seemed to have fairly good loads, esp the TXL. I think they were dropped to boost the STN hub idea.
Better connections in many cases can be had via the MAN-HAM route rather than STN, but they are often not shown or bookable as connecting flights, in preference to routing you via STN.
BA Connect /Flybe offer pretty ineffective competition, higher fares, small aircraft & poor punctuality. Lufthansa have cornered the C class MAN-German market often upping the aircraft to A321s.
We do need a low cost MAN-MUC service. The V bird was always full with people going to MUC via Niederrhein,there is no competition from LPL either on that route.
I think that MAN-HAM,MAN-TXL, MAN-MUC would offer far better connections & pax appeal than the STN shuffle IMHO.

While the 787s will be replacing the LTU A330s, there is still room for considerable expansion. One possibility that occurred to me was the link between this order, FR's rumoured interest in AB and MO'L's interest in developing a long haul low cost airline.

AB is known to be interested in the long haul low cost concept also.

Ss it seems AB will axe all internal uk flights from the end of October.
Last flights seem to be STN-MAN 28th and STN-BHD/GLA on the 31st.

lets hope this free's up aircraft for a direct link from ncl to germany then

AB due Hub STN
 

AB have pulled the domestic routes for two main reasons. One is the high landing charges at STN and BAA's lack of interest in the transit point in arrivals. The airline has got stick of the transit point opening late and under staffed. This causes delays and had a knock on effect for the rest of the day. Which for staff and pax gets anoying.
It gives the idea that BAA dont care and they dont. Its a great shame to see a good airline leave the UK domestic market because of BAA.
AB will cut back the PAD and LEJ over the winter months. There will still be a big morining wave but all be returning to Germany. The mid morning wave will stay as will the afternoon wave but no domestic routes. The evening wave will be the same but no PAD in the evenings.
Its not just AB on the move, FR and NE are cutting routes from STN and moving them to LTN or droping them.