SK2751

What is the MF model and why wouldn't it work?

irishguy28

MF = "Mixed Fleet", allowing BA to hire new cabin crew on inferior contracts and on "poverty pay", as alleged by staff following the current strike action on BA.



(Air delivery of pizza could be quite a money-spinner!!! )

Wtravel

Safe assumption that the German Government will prop them up until the elections. I certainly wouldn't take any risks beyond that date!

BlackBerryAddict

I can send you the spreadsheet if you want

kcaluwae

I suppose they might do so but just like LH they will not take over the huge load of debt.

Without Air Berlin Europe is even more a wide open gap in the OW network. *alliance is clearly dominant here, Skyteam has KLM-AF. OW needs a better network in Europe.

Totally agree. On LH flights you can make a small detour to fly one of the OW carriers but that's not an option for the majority of flights within Europe.

I did buy some bonds expiring April 2018 because of the promise of Etihad... too bad they don't stick to their promise...

makrom

Indeed, Central Europe isn't exactly a OW bastion as it is. Once AB is gone, OW coverage will be almost inexistent.

irishguy28

No thanks - just an example of a route is sufficient!

bhomburg

There is not really a parallel.
Basically, Swissair didn't get the money they needed to keep flying by the time they needed it (and which they were promised, namely by UBS) and had to ground the fleet when they ran out of cash. Emergency (government) financing emerged too late to save the old Swissair.
The airberlin bankruptcy is much better managed in comparison. There will be no sudden grounding as in the Swissair case - not now, not in the future, that's for sure.
The parallel to Swissair is how the financial trouble at both airlines started - a failed expansion strategy.

I'm old enough to remember LH's near-monopoly and the fares they charged before AB emerged as the only serious (network airline) competition, and definitely don't want to go back to those days.

BlackBerryAddict

GOT-TXL, BA7597 operated by AB8061, dep 06:15, arr 07:35

schnapperin

There are certain conditions to be meet before the court will grand this "Selbstverwaltung" as its called in german. Usually there is a lot involved before its filled, all creditors are informed of the plan etc.

There will be an external be appointed, but he has no offically power and the old board is still in charge - which makes it much easier to handle such a large company like AB.

But it still depends, how big is the Ethiad controlled share at the creditor's meeting, will they oppose the liquidator?

It seems that the 150 Mio. € will tied them over at least for the next 12 weeks (that the usual period) but if the booking (and cash flow) ar stopping, the 12 weeks can be a lot shorter - depends what they expected of new bookings.

Personal I booked yesterday (darn!) after checking the letter of comfort from Ethiad was still good - with a flight during the german fall holiday season and a return on 19 November - just outside the 12 weeks mark..so I might book a back up refundable flight in the next few days..

lost_in_translation

I think the EY/LH codeshare announcement yesterday morning was not a good sign (and also slightly bizarre that this was announced the day before the insolvency filing):

Etihad / Lufthansa expands European codeshares from August 2017
By Jeanette Forbes
Posted14 August 2017 07:30

Etihad Airways and Lufthansa starting this month is expanding codeshare partnership, which sees selected Lufthansa’s intra-European service carrying Etihad’s EY-coded flight numbers. Planned codeshare routes approximately from 13AUG17 as follow.

ETIHAD operated by Lufthansa
Frankfurt – Barcelona
Frankfurt – Copenhagen
Frankfurt – Helsinki
Frankfurt – Prague
Frankfurt – Valencia
Munich – Barcelona
Munich – Copenhagen
Munich – Helsinki
Munich – Prague
Munich – Valencia

George Purcell

Lovely. Just booked an award ticket to Prague for March; thankfully on AA metal to Zurich.

It AB goes bankrupt will the procedure be to rebook on other oneworld flights?

irishguy28

Perhaps I should have asked for an example that can actually be booked? BA.com does not appear to offer the GOT to TXL flight for any possible journey commencing in Gothenburg...

EDIT: Never mind, found DUS-NUE codeshares offered (though not GOT-TXL!!!) I don't think BA will "miss" these AB codeshares

warakorn

I can tell you what happened in the case of the Malev insolvency and grounding.
Basically, any Malev-issued tickets for travel on other oneworld carriers were honored.
QF then operated FRA-SIN-SYD.
If you bought BUD-FRA-SIN-SYD on Malev stock, QF still honored their own segments FRA-SIN-SYD. However, it was the passenger responsibility to get to FRA on his own.

warakorn

There are some parallels (of course, many things are different).
Swissair expected a payment by a big Swiss bank. They needed the money, because most suppliers demanded upfront payment, because some Swissair entity went into a managed bankcruptcy the day before.
The Swiss bank - due to various reasons - did not wire the money. Hence, Swissair could not pay its suppliers (largely airport operators at outstations) upfront.
There was not enough time to iron out a government bailout.

In the case of Air Berlin, the government bailout was already negotiated and agreed-on some time ago. It acts as a lifeline for AB. AB basically took this lifeline last weekend.
However, as with the Swiss bank in the case of Swissair, another private entity (Etihad) has failed to meet its payment deadline (EUR 50m).

It's quite telling - if a big airline has to file for bankcruptcy, just because a partner failed to wire EUR 50m in-time -> then the finances of AB were really, really bad.