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.