frogster

Problem for any buyer would be that LH is currently selecting the nicest pieces - anything remaining is probably not interesting for anybody.
On the other hand I haven’t looked at their P&L – how much of their losses were for debt service and other “old” commitments? If those are deducted it might be possible to achieve positive figures…
Without AB OW can still offer connections into and out of the German speaking markets, tbut hey’re losing access to all the intra DACH connections and probably loose a lot of German (and Austrian & Swiss) customers…

The only operator besides LH (squeeze out the competition) where a takeover could make some sense would probably be IAG – as a EU company they would not be under the same restrictions Ethiad was facing. Those stopped all efforts for a full takeover…

BlackBerryAddict

There are actually codeshares between AB and oneworld airlines: AY, BA, IB, JL, RJ, S7, UL.

wolf72

Their airfares were very very expensive for London-Munich/Munich-London in August. I had been comparing their fares to Lufthansa and BA and eventually elected to fly BA.

I am shocked by this news..never saw it coming!

SK2751

I also usually fly AB on (relatively) expensive tickets. Usually, because on my routes their expensive tickets are reasonable when competitions are unreasonable. Most of the year, I fly on competition though, as their low fares are much lower than what AB offers to me. It might be though because I usually use AB on connecting flights. On an odd occasion when I was taking AB direct, the fares were unbelievably low.

I have no idea what is the reason for their poor financial performance. The planes seem full or almost full almost every single time. Perhaps yields are low, and the fares are pay are not representative. Or they have huge dept, or bad contracts with staff.

irishguy28

I'm not saying codeshares don't exist. But I am struggling to find any airberlin route on which BA has bothered to place its code. Are there any examples?

warakorn

AB is in serious trouble.
Who in his right mind would be willing to book new tickets with AB at the moment? Esp. corporate travel (the backbone for the DACH routes) will dry up.

AB needs the cash flow.
Hotels at outstations (and other suppliers) will demand prepayment. This will be a nasty surprise for the longhaul crews, arriving at their hotels at ORD, LAX, JFK, and finding out they need to pay the room by themselves.

In my eyes AB will be shutting down even earlier than 3 months, because the money will run out much more quickly.
Federal elections in Germany will be in 6.5 weeks. By then all the package-holidaymakers will be back.

A waste of taxpayers money (AB won't be able to repay it) in my eyes!

frogster

According to various German sources and statements by a German minister the government loan should insure continued operations until November 2017 (after the election – who could have imagined that…). This is supposed to allow for a clean sale/shutdown of AirBerlin without leaving passengers stranded.
Condition for the sign-off on FY 2017 (due to a going concern) KPMG required a letter of support until end of 2018 from Ethiad which they provided. The filing now happened since Ethiad didn’t wire AB some agreed upon 50 Mio EUR (out of a 350 Mio. EUR loan agreed upon in April)…

Concerto

I too did not expect this, although I should have. Got a whole bunch of airberlin flights coming up, starting this Sunday. Typical. Wonder if there's any way to save it at this stage. The news as shown by Swisscom bluewin in Switzerland:

https://www.bluewin.ch/de/news/wirts...olvenz-an.html

warakorn

Swissair all over again!

Tafflyer

Ryanair and Easyjet are taking aim at Lufthansa group right now, so I suspect IAG would be happier to let that play out first before taking a risk in the German market. Also, labour laws and conditions are not the same in Germany as in other jurisdictions (like the UK) meaning the BA MF crew model would never work here, resulting in much higher costs.

CPH-Flyer

Connections out of Frankfurt, long haul feed from Germany. Not really BA, but to some extend QR, but the non European airlines will loose connectivity without AB. Sure they can feed it through London on BA, but they may want to support other routes with traffic from the German market.

Different topic, does AB have sone LHR slots that would be worth any decent amount?

warakorn

No!
If AB had LHR slots, they would have sold them already some years ago.

Concerto

A thread about the bankruptcy of airberlin got wiped almost instantly off the face of the British Airways forum, so I am not sure where to address the question of award tickets on AB issued using Avios. I posted a question in the 'Your Guide to spending Avios' thread so hopefully that is the right place to discuss that issue.

Here is the BBC news article about AB's insolvency:

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40935559

hkskyline

Was looking at a good last minute fare on EY with part of the journey on AB to TXL. Guess nobody in his/her right mind will risk a delay an odd cancellation to try AB now, right?

SK2751

I am not old enough to remember the Swissair story in detail. Could you explain the parallel?