77W_12A

I have a feeling that AB's days in OW are numbered. Back to connecting in LHR to get to Central Europe. =(

UA Fan

+1

irishguy28

Why not just follow AB over to Skyteam (if that is where they end up?)

ralfkrippner

german website biztravel.fvw.de just shared rumours, that etihad thinks about merging Air Berlin with Alitalia.

irishguy28

Yes, that rumour is doing the rounds and has previously been mentioned in this thread.

ralfkrippner

Well, having a european airline holding that holds etihads shares in a number of airlines in trouble is something different than merging Airberlin and Alitalia.

At the moment this rumour seems far fetched for me.

I don't know if etihad has a clear perspective what they want to get at with buying shares in such different airlines than AZ, AB and Darwin. As a european airlines customer I hope it will in the end be something that keeps up competition so that pricing is fair and not dominated by just one of the big players and its monopoly on a certain route.

irishguy28

That remains to be seen.

If AZ and AB are going to be "joined up" in this way, then clearly the idea of combining other stakes in the same company is under consideration.

And not all of their European airlines are in trouble...

ralfkrippner

I do think that the central european market has room for another functioning multinational airline offering european-, midhaul- and longhaul-flights - especially if it is a member of oneworld or skyteam.

If etihad could combine the fleets of airlines like AZ and AB and work on a good network of routes where the competition today asks for high fares and if that "new" airline is efficient and has a good management and sales, it could be a long term profitable asset. Maybe they even find out that a good mileage program could help to gain new and loyal customers...

However to combine the bottomless AZ and the conceptless AB into such a functioning new airline would not be easy of course.

Cofyknsult

I agree with you and I won't miss them, but I hope that it does not spell the end of the AA flight between ORD and DUS the way the flights to Budapest were ended when Malev went bust. Of course, AA flights to Berlin should likely begin when BER finally opens.

UA Fan

Hopefully from DFW.

Cofyknsult

The present AB is not really rudderless, it just tries to combine 2 incompatible components. A short haul LCC and a full service long haul carrier.

LCCs do not belong to alliances dominated by full service carriers, thus the exit of Aer Lingus from Oneworld a few years ago when EL gave up any pretense of being full service.

I have no idea of what can happen of the long haul component (go on their own, sale to LH, other direction) but I can see a consolidation of AB short haul with the European services of AZ under the name "Etihad European". EY might even become interested in OA and TP later on... 3 mega carriers are too many for the Gulf area and they need to find other outlets to grow. Here is a way for EY...

CHCflyer

Merging Alitalia and AB is an industrial relations nightmare, and one thing Etihad does not have is IR experience. It is an airline that simply hires and fires according to whim.
This has all of the hallmarks of the Qualiflyer alliance - a collection of disparate airlines with not much in common.
Let's buy a bunch of airlines and work out the strategy later.

Concerto

Alitalia has a history of unhappy and uneasy partnerships. I remember one with KLM, a good while before Skyteam was created, that suddenly from one day to the next went pear-shaped. I think an Alitalia and Air Berlin pairing would be awkward and uncomfortable at best.

To be honest, a couple of years ago I thought Lufthansa was repeating the Qualiflyer mistakes, having taken over a raft of loss-making airlines (Austrian, bmi, Croatian, etc.). But the tide seems to be turning.

To me, Air Berlin doesn't feel very much like a LCC when I fly within Europe. A sort of full service is provided (granted, if you want more than the basics you have to pay for it) and I've never had to pay for a bag (unlike the fiasco I had at Iberia recently). I would be very sorry to see them go. I think they provide some much needed competition to Lufthansa, and, frankly, a better in some ways.

Cofyknsult

Now that you mention it....

Cofyknsult

They haven't really "Bought shares" in Darwin, they have BOUGHT Darwin, and the planes proudly feature the "Etihad Regional" livery. I do realize that the airline is expanding as I saw one of their SAAB 2000 at CDG last week (no idea what it was doing there), but one does not build a regional network out of only one or two line-ends (ZRH, CDG) of the mother ship. They do have ROM and DUS on a "few flights" basis, and these are the centers for AZ and AB. I fully recognize the Qualiflyer syndrome mentioned by many, but maybe there is a strategy hidden somewhere...