Originally Posted by
salut0
So confused about what you’re referring to. Presumably you mean BA weren’t allowed to fly fifth freedom flights within Germany as a non-German company so they bought a German company and rebranded it as a franchise.
The Internal German Services were basically a consequence of the end of World War 2 and the arrangements made in relation to Berlin by the four Allies: France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. As
this article puts it:
... Of course, there was no longer any Deutsche Lufthansa and even when the airline was re-established it was forbidden from serving Berlin.
All civil operations had to be operated by the airlines of the victorious powers – the USA, UK and France. These not only included services connecting to other capital cities but also domestic services that would become known as the IGS (Inter-German Services). ...
The article continues in a
part 2, a
part 3 and a
part 4. The end of part 4 relates how LH was able to start serving Berlin, the subsequent history of the ending of the IGS arrangements and BA's acquisition of Deutsche BA.