I don't see the German leaving an outsider pickup any significant part of AB.

Interesting Read:
Airberlin Ceasing Operations As Of November 1, 2017? - One Mile at a Time

Ceasing Operations on 28 October. Niki & LGW as well as all aircraft leasing arrangements will continue as normal.

Ceasing operation under the air berlin brand, flight operation will continue as wet lease operator, all slots to be sold will have to be operated by air berlin until the eu commission gives their green light.

is Niki going under too?

rog747

As far as news and TV reports say - No !
It appears LH Group has placed a very attractive bid for Niki. Amazing also that offer for LGW. Well, as of Thursday we should know how the case proceeds.

Was there anything more to Air Berlins failure than

1 Not controlling costs
2 Stupid venture into long haul for aLoCo
3 the disaster of BER , their planned hub and homebase being ten years late in opening and therefore not allowing optimum use of their fleet.

or is the silent but heavy hand of LH doing more behind the scenes to contribute to its demise before it harmed the LH operation

Actually LH was pretty happy that AB was filling a space that would otherwise have been filled by much more threatening competitors.

Lufthansa today signed the deal with airberlin. They bought LGW (20 DHC-8-400) and Niki (21 A320) plus slots for another 13 A320 from AB, they already own another 20 A320 that are currently operated by airberlin. Additionally to that they will wetlease seven 737s from TUIfly.

So far they have applications from 8 pilots from airberlin, the rest is not interested at the current offer. Which means that around 33 aircraft they bought will be grounded very soon due to lack of crews.

I guess there is no surprise here - there was zero chance for an outsider to enter this market.

That's the interesting part of the story - I'm really curious to see who will move first (ie LH proposing bette conditions or AB pilots lowering their guard).

Ah....At last....A fellow traveller.

I've been banging on here about LH and its acquisitions and immunity to monopoly considerations for the past five or six years....

Disgraceful, shameful, ridiculous what they have been allowed to get away with - almost invites anyone, and I mean anyone, to believe that the EU is run for German benefit.

Wonder if the corrupted ( sorry - meant to say acquiescent but don't know how to spell it ) ones in Brussels will insist that LH give up a percentage of the AB slots they have acquired at FRA as they inisted on the BA takeover of BMI....

Look....A pig !


Edited to add.....There are quite a few rumours and whispers in the UAE that a certain airline in the Middle East are seriously considering taking legal action for compensation from more than one single party / civic group as, they argue, the fiasco which is the 'new' Berlin airport contributed significantly to AB's inability to fully implement the strategy agreed when the Middle Eastern airline agreed its initial investment in AB.

Now that really would be interesting....

"almost invites anyone, and I mean anyone, to believe that the EU is run for German benefit."

"the race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong - but that's the way to bet" Dmanon Runyon

In the words of the black Adder: Hussar54, who is currently using the family brain cell ?

If you have not understood til now that the EU is an instrument mainly for the benefit of big corporations (them being German or any other "nationality"), then...you can´t be helped me thinks.

And just for your information (although I do have a feeling you already now that and that you also like to express your animosity against citizens of a neighboring country):

Lufthansa is not Germany nor German per se. Its a company that stock is traded. Even you can "own" it.

Have a look: main stockholder lufthansahttps://investor-relations.lufthansagroup.com/en/aktie/shareholder-structure.html

Lufthansa pays taxes in Germany. If they do well financially, it benefits Germany. I think most countries would wish to support their industries, and most politicians would wish to keep their sources of tax revenue. Go look in that Bombardier thread what the US are doing for Boeing. Money makes the world go 'round. (That doesn't mean that the EU aren't run for Germany's benefit. Ask Varoufakis, or read his book.)

Shock horror.. major airline tries to build a monopoly....

Alitalia,Qantas, BA, JAL, SAS never thought of that .......

no you make it quite clear you don't think. It is not being done legally and is being supported by a government is the tone of the german press and others. That should make you concerned.

Imagine the same government is dictating brexit terms with the same integrity. Did monarch get the same level of government support?

The whole scandal and it is a scandal has wide ranging implications once the story develops a little more.

The difference is 60 millions GBP to bring the Monarch pax back home are paid bei British tax payers.
Most probably German Government/tax payers will get the 133 mio GBP AB credit back pretty soon....

it seems pprune really is UK orientated.

Many inner german routes will now only have lufthansa or eurowings flying the route. Previously air berlin competed on such routes.

Carsten Spohr (Lufthansa CEO) stated this week that passengers have no need to worry about price hikes on such routes as eurowings and lufthansa will be competing. He obviously also thinks the general public are as intelligent as heathrow harry.

The sell off of parts of air berlin is also very interesting as lufthansa have been allowed to cherry pick exactly what they want unchallenged. Easyjet are still in discussions but are reportedly unhappy at the slots lufthansa have left them and have therefore reduced the size of their offer. Discussions continue.

Lufthansa are also championing as fact they saved around 3,000 jobs at Niki and LGW as a result of the takeover. Niki and LGW did not declare bankruptcy and are going concerns. So some strange logic in use there as well.

Pretty unlikely LGW and Niki would have survived long on their own. Air Berlin sold the seats so the creditor situation is an interesting one. Actually it is amazing that Air Berlin is being wound up in a more or less controlled fashion. Some sort of legal follow up with long drawn out court cases seems highly probable.

He gladly sold ailing LaudaAir to the Austrian government in 2000.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...g-airline.html
AUA-Verkauf besiegelt: Kranich soll Flügel verleihen « DiePresse.com

Time to destroy some pages of your manual. Cave: this time around, the right ones... :8

How about we all stick to original theme of this thread : Air Berlin filing for bancruptcy ??
Fact is Air Berlin went bancrupt afer all these many years of losses.
Fact is the German Government took its responsibilities for its Citizens - AB Passenger - serious and enabled a well coordinated repatriation for those abroad.
Fact is the KFW credit of 150 mio Euro will be payed back from the payment of 220 mio Euro LH layed on the table for "aircraft".
So very different from that Monarch case no tax money wasted.
I tend to bet that in a month or two no "better knowing" and even more the public will waste a word on the case.

About time.

:uhoh:

That's an interesting article on the monopoly situation. Some quotes:

• "The German cartel office said it expected the European Commission to take a close look at the deal."
• "Ryanair (RYA.I) CEO Michael O‘Leary has called it a “stitch-up”, saying it would give Lufthansa a 95 percent share of the German domestic market."
• "Lufthansa has said it has a market share of 34 percent on routes to and from Germany, while Air Berlin had 14 percent. With the takeover of parts of Air Berlin that will remain below 48 percent, which Lufthansa says is equivalent to Ryanair’s market share in Ireland."

Ryanair was operating Berlin-Cologne, but with the recent spate of cancellations, that one got cancelled. Maybe German domestic flights aren't all that profitable? There's the high-speed rail system, the fact that the central airports Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich are at capacity, that anyone who has slots there (including Ryanair) can more profitably use them to operate international flights (European or intercontionental), and that with the cost development in air travel, many smaller airlines and regional carriers have not been able to operate profitably (obvious examples would be Niki Lauda selling Niki, and Air Berlin going bust). So the options for domestic air travel seem to be either a) Lufthansa doing most of the flights, b) nobody doing them, or c) tickets getting a lot more expensive, which would allow for competition to be profitable again, but creates the situation that competition is meant to avoid.

I think it's much ado about nothing.

So BCal was an orderly shut down.

As was BeeMed.

As was Midland.

Thank heavens.

... making dearly needy Qatar happy with ATOL money.

... which, as a system, is bleeding time and again at tax payers' expense.

So the expectable boost in rail fares will free up tax money for infrastructure refurbishing, which seems a better investment than domestic flight from no less packed airports at giveaway fares.

But, yeah, ol' Eary has been wanting Air Berlin so badly for so many years now.

Time and again we have seen that in relatively low populated countries two or more airlines are financially unsustainable.

Only in the US, with its significant market size, do we see a plurality of (relatively) successful airlines

In an industry with a $10 per passenger profit, in good years, this shouln’t be a surprise.

If you want to make a small fortune in this business, you need to start with a large one.

Funny to watch this supposedly professional pilots network, where pilots are screaming for more competition.
When has competition ever done anything good for T & C's in Your profession gentlemen?

It's not been in a long time.

Heck, from the German side, Air Berlin was meant to be a German Virgin or easyjet, but they never found the people to do it. Deutsche Bank was a driving force in the glueing together of smaller German airlines, one of which former British Airways'-IGS-successor Deutsche BA a.k.a. flydba, and IPOing that vehicle. The masters of da universe had spoken, which led former chairman of the LH supervisory board Weber to eliminate Deutsche Bank's seat in said board.

Now the modu's taxi drivers have spoken.

You nailed it....

Last longhaul flight landing in DUS with a special pilot feat..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N78rajMN0Mo

as seen from ATC https://m.facebook.com/thomas.einwag...02720496416451

And yet more....

https://newsroom.lufthansagroup.com/...6-704bed9a4929

I am really surprised by this development. Unless they manage to impose drastically lower T&C (unlikely) I don't see the business case.

Pilots never learn you have to assume AB were not aware

Passengers on board? Not acceptable, no matter what imho.

Investigation?
 

You must be joking?

A little roll back and forth? What is the problem?

Live a little!

What has aviation downgraded to?

If they're trowing in the towel after this what would they care...

Pax are paying for a safe flight from A to B, not unwilling participants in a flyby. These guys should be hang, drawn and quartered. Don’t bother applying for a job at my Airline either, we don’t want you.