Lufthansa takes over Brussels Airlines in Eurowings expansion

[EGGS & bacon]

Not much about this in the media!

LH has bought the remaining 55% Shares in SN Brussels Airlines ( the old Sabena) and will almalgamate the planes into the Eurowings Fleet. With 60 odd Germanwings A320's, 38 Air Berlin A320's a couple of Sun Express 737's and a pair of Tuifly 767's also on board the project or in the merge Queue, who's next?

Lufthansa takes over Brussels Airlines in Eurowings expansion | Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-lufthansa-m-a-brussels-airlines-idUSKBN14410O)

[Kerosene Kraut]

CEO Pichler will leave AB former Germanwings CEO Winkelmann to take over.

[Hotel Tango]

I thought SN Brussels was actually the old Delta Air Transport!

[PAXboy]

I though SN Brussels was a combination of the old SABENA (hence their African routes) and the Virgin Express (hence their European Routes). There was another discount carrier that became V Exp but I can't remember it's name.

[lederhosen]

There is a very interesting chess game going on here with Lufthansa potentially (in all but name) taking over large chunks of Air Berlin. This keeps competitors out and potentially provides a cheaper pool of staff. Although how much cheaper is not absolutely clear. The long running battle between the pilots union and LH is going to arbitration. LH is starting to cooperate with the middle eastern airline that cannot be named.....interesting times. The elephant in the room is whether this might attract the attention of the competition authorities. In times of old it would almost certainly have raised questions. Now with the multinational low costers (Ryanair, Easy and Norwegian) increasing market share who knows?

[canberra97]

Hotel Tango

Although too lengthy to add here a good place to visit is the Sabena Wikipedia page as it gives a very detailed account but Delta Air Transport was never been involved in SN Brussels Airlines.

[Hotel Tango]

Although too lengthy to add here a good place to visit is the Sabena Wikipedia page as it gives a very detailed account but Delta Air Transport was never been involved in SN Brussels Airlines.

As one who flew regularly on both SABENA and DAT, I guess it depends on how you want to interpret things.


On 1 November 2001, Sabena collapsed due to financial difficulties. DAT could re-launch its operations on 10 November with a flight to Geneva, having received all of Sabena's slots at Brussels Airport and thus being able to maintain the successful European network. Freddy Van Gaever, its former CEO, planned to merge DAT with Virgin Express and add flights to the United States using former Sabena aircraft, which was why the new DAT Plus branding was adopted. Actually, DAT came under the umbrella of SN Airholding (the liquidator of Sabena) in 2002, and was re-organized under a new AOC as SN Brussels Airlines, which later became Brussels Airlines, today's flag carrier of the country.

[zed3]

HT... I was waiting for that.. facts speak louder than words!

[racedo]

No doubt some air crew will have flown the same route for years and have a collection of various different uniforms and ID's.

[EGGS & bacon]

Well even bigger news; LH is also taking over Air Berlin so how is that going to change things? and still nothing in the UK media ( not even flight global ) and this is BA's Oneworld Partner!

Lufthansa ?to absorb Air Berlin? | Business | DW.COM | 19.12.2016 (http://www.dw.com/en/lufthansa-to-absorb-air-berlin/a-36825645)

[Hussar 54]

And the EU Commissioner for Trade has what to say about it ??

As if !!

( Yes I know I'm boring - about the 20th post I've made the past 5 years or so about LH's apparent immunity to ANY of the myriad EU anti-competivity laws.....)

[davidjohnson6]

EU competition law has a principle that pretty much overrides other stuff - namely that if without a merger a company would likely go bankrupt and large numbers of people would lose their jobs, then Brussels will give its consent
BA taking over bmi was possibly against competition law, but because bmi would have likely gone bust otherwise, the EU raised no major objections (barring a few slots at LHR)

[VickersVicount]

arent they just 'absorbing' some Air Berlin aircraft not the airline..

[Denti]

At the moment they're absorbing 40 aircraft (38 of the as ACMI lease) into the Eurowings and Austrian brands. But as the new CEO of airberlin is coming from Lufthansa (while Pichler makes his way back to Australia), there are quite a few speculations that the rest of airberlin will be absorbed as well. And apparently the unmentionable airline is changing its course (and probably CEO) and want to get rid of their european assets, while they are apparently very much interested in a 10% share in Lufthansa.

[Hussar 54]

DAVE....

Yes....I'm aware of the circumstances / laws you mention.

However, I'm not convinced that all LH Group was acquired using that 'get-out' clause....

SUBSIDIARIES OF THE LUFTHANSA GROUP

Cityline – wholly owned 100%, acquired by Lufthansa March 1992
Luxair – owned 13% acquired December 1992
BMI – acquired 20% of BMI, July 1999
Air Dolomiti – wholly owned 100%, acquired by Lufthansa July 2003
Eurowings – wholly owned 100%, acquired by Lufthansa December 2006
Germanwings – wholly owned 100%, acquired via Eurowings December 2006
Sun Express – owned 50%, acquired February 2007
BMI – acquired further 10% of BMI, July 2007
Swiss International – wholly owned 100%, acquired by Lufthansa July 2007
AeroLogic – owned 50% since September 2007
Jet Blue Airways – owned 15.8% since December 2007
Brussels Airlines – owned 45% since September 2008 with an option to purchase the remaining 55%
BMI – acquired remaining 50% of BMI, October 2008
Eidelweiss – wholly owned 100%, acquired via Swiss International November 2008
Austrian Airlines – wholly owned 100%, acquired by Lufthansa September 2009
Tyrolean Airways – wholly owned 100%, acquired via Austrian September 2009
BMI – sold 100% to IAG, March 2012
Brussels Airlines - remaining 55% acquired December 2016
Air Berlin -control of approx 45 Air Berlin aircraft, crews and German Internal Network announced December 2016

Amazingly, only two of these 16 acquisitions and the single disposal attracted the attention of the EC’s Competition Commissioners –

In June 2008, the Austrian Government were advised to sell AUA to foreign ownership, and Aeroflot, Singapore Airlines, Turkish Airlines, BA, AF-KLM, S7 and Lufthansa all approached the Austrian Government as potential buyers. In September 2008, it was announced that Lufthansa had been selected as the buyer. In July 2009, the EC finally agreed to an enquiry into the deal, after it was revealed that the Austrian Government had committed to provide the airline with a €500 million restructuring grant ‘ once the deal has been closed ‘ AF – KL complained that this had not been openly communicated to the other companies interested in acquiring AUA, but the Austrian Government refused to hold a re-tendering process and completed a deal with Lufthansa. The EC stated that it had suspicions that ‘ The tendering process was a fake one, everything having already been decided in favour of Lufthansa ‘ Just three months later, the Commission waived the deal through after Lufthansa ‘ agreed to change the structure of the deal retrospectively ‘.

And the disposal of BMI to IAG in 2012 was only allowed to proceed by the EC Competition Commission after IAG agreed to give up 14 slots at Heathrow. But as an IAG Senior Manager reportedly said to a Press Briefing at the time ‘ It’s a small price to pay, because if it wasn’t Lufthansa selling it to us, we certainly wouldn’t have been allowed to buy BMI ‘[/QUOTE]