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.