Iceland acquires Maersk Air

[Clipper7]

It was just announced that the Icelandic company that own Iceland Express and recently acquired the Danish company Sterling has now acquired another Danish carrier, Maersk Air. It is was noted - accurately or not - that the combined company would have 40 B-737s in operation and would be the largest low-cost carrier in Northern Europe.

It's interesting that Icelandair is now Iceland's third largest airline, after Air Atlanta and this new group.

[Flip Flop Flyer]

Links to the story. In Danish, I'm afraid, which may present a small problem for a few users here ;)

http://ekstrabladet.dk/VisArtikel.iasp?PageID=299877

http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/article.php?id=2549942&forside

An interesting spin on this development is that A.P. Möller - Maersk, the parent of Maersk Air until this take over, is in the process of buying P&O Nedlloyd. P&O owns the majority of Martinair.

[CR2]

FFF

MP is 50/50 owned by KLM/Nedlloyd as far as I can remember.

[CaptainProp]

Does this include STAR Air???

/CP

[TO/GA]

Here is the press relese from Sterling web page.

http://www.sterlingticket.com/en/om_sterling_en/nyheder_en/pressemeddelelser_en.htm


TO/GA

[Techman]

Star Air is apparently not part of the deal and will remain part of the A.P. Moller Group.

Somehow I think there was a huge sigh of relief in Cologne this morning. Unless they knew about it already.



And just as a side note,

You gotta love press releases like the one from Sterling dated 4. May 2005 with the headline

Improved profits for Sterling in first quarter of 2005

It then goes on saying how they lost some 40 odd million DKK in the first quarter. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[TO/GA]

Here is a link to Maersk`s press relese were they confirm that Star Air is not part of the deal.

http://www.maersk.com/pdf/uk/maersk_air_fondsboersen_uk.pdf

TO/GA

[Flip Flop Flyer]

Funny how this is deemed not newsworthy by the mods. Anyway, another linky but still in Danish:

http://www.berlingske.dk/business/artikel:aid=595720/

A few translated excerpts:

Flyflåden vil indtil videre være den samme som hidtil. Maersk Air vil fortsat eje de nuværende fly, som vil blive leaset og opereret af Sterling.

"The fleet will remain the same. Maersk Air will continue to own the present aircraft, which will be leased and operated by Sterling"

Vi vil for eksempel realisere betydelige synergigevinster gennem afvikling af dobbeltfunktioner og tekniske installationer. Den personalereduktion i den administrative stab, der er en uundgåelig konsekvens heraf, vil ske ud fra princippet om 'best practice' og 'best man'. Vi vil simpelthen opbygge en helt ny organisation, der får sin egen identitet, og hvor enhver har mulighed for at søge ansættelse.

"We will for instance realise considerable synergy gains through the discontiunation of double functions and technical installations. The reduction of numbers in the adminstrative staff, which is an unavoidable consequence (of the merger) will be based on the principles of "best practice" and "best man". We will simply construct a whole new organization, with its own identidy, where every employee will have the option of applying for work"

Det flyvende personel vil ikke blive berørt - ud over at vi vil kreere nye uniformer og andet udstyr med nyt logo etc."

"The flying staff will not be touched, apart from new uniforms and other equipment with a new logo."

So we can deduce that a lot of people in admin and on the technical side will be made redundant, whereas the flying staff are safe for the moment. We may also deduce that Sterling and Maersk Air will both be rebranded. If that is not worthy of a spot on R&N, then what is?


CR2

My bad, yes it\'s 50/50 rather than a majority owned by P&O. I\'d venture the proposition that KLM will offload its shares in the not too distant future.

[Brenoch]

I'd imagine seniority/bases might become a bit of an issue?

[Techman]

And I'd imagine that the management sees this as an excellent opportunity to reduce T&Cs even further.

[Flip Flop Flyer]

Oh yeah, lowest common denominator and all that. Wonder if they'll merge Iceland Express into this new company as well.

[Push to talk]

P&O Nedlloyd already had intentions to sell it's MP share, but wants to make the company more 'healthy' before it will do so.

[OSCAR YANKEE]

Techman!
All T&C's continue untill they expire, are terminated or replaced by a new agreement. (Thats the law!)

The most important agreement - the labour agreement (ie. pay, rostering, pension etc. ) continues untill it is replaced by a new agreement.
So practically it is not as big a problem as politically........

Rgds.

[Clipper7]

I've heard that the old owners of MAERSK paid the Icelanders that "bought" the company around 50 million Euro to take the airline off their hands - honorably !

[Flip Flop Flyer]

It's owner as in singular. Was 100% owned by A.P. Moeller-Maersk.