limitless

Well, I'll probably still try regardless and hopefully not get marooned. Might see what it costs to upgrade at the airport... I suppose a little bit of money is better than nothing? Lowest "bid" for one is still 520EUR If any of y'all happen to have upgrade certs to burn lemme know

GrayAnderson

All of this talk around the CEO's pay reminds me of a recent local flap: A local city was in deep trouble but the City Manager got a raise. Why? Turns out he averted an outright bankruptcy and met his targets.

Something else to consider: As deeply as Ethiad was funding Air Berlin, they functionally paid the CEO's salary. If anyone got ripped off on this, it's not Air Berlin...it's Ethiad.

Ldnn1

Etihad ripped themselves off. Their poor investment decisions were entirely of their own making.

SK2751

Check this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/airbe...4-service.html

There are indication that Nov 1 *might* be the day of ceasing all operations.

Sisyphus1carus

Has NIKI continued to operate ?
I wonder if those who bought TopBonus points via NIKI can claim the cost back against NIKI ?

jonnyincali

After two phone calls and five hours on hold, I was able to get a friendly person on the other end of the phone at AB, who rerouted my trip home on 9.10.17 from LIN-DUS-SFO to VCE-DUS-SFO since AB deleted AB 8740 & AB 8741 LIN-DUS and DUS-LIN flights as of 29.9.17. I consider myself one of the lucky ones, for now at least.

LukeO9

Are you sure? Tickets are still being sold for Oct.
How did you find out?

LukeO9

I see it now:
https://www.airberlin.com/site/affil...chungen_en.pdf

...but only 2 flights (AB 8740 & AB 8741). Others still operating.....for now.

Scrooge McDuck

German news magazine DER SPIEGEL and news paper Süddeutsche Zeitung report that is is possible that AB will no longer be able to fly from 28 October on. This would apply for own financed flights. In case of a sell-off from parts, then these parts would be able to continue. This does not apply for Niki and LG Walter.

intuition

Just a day ago I received a message about minor schedule change for a November flight. A flight that very likely never will happen. Is there any point for the insolvent company to do work on future schedules?

Scrooge McDuck

The point is that AB itself will most likely not be able to fly these flights. However, any airline taking over parts of AB seem to have the obligation from the takeover to keep the flights (and any decificts resulting from these parts) on their own.

In the end you will have to wait until it is clear which parts are taken by whom and which parts are not taken. Due date is still set for beginning of next week. Then you will have more claritiy if your flight is affected from any groundings, cancellations, reschedules or flights flying according to schedule.

Often1

Why on earth would another carrier or group acquiring an asset of AB from its insolvency administrator operate any service for which it isn't going to get paid?

AB has been paid for those tickets and the cash generated from those sales is held by the administrator for the benefit of AB's creditors, e.g. employees, aircraft leasing companies, fuel suppliers and the like. If there were enough cash to go around, AB would not be insolvent.

Unless it is somehow made a part of the deal, I don't see why buying an asset obligates one to do with that asset what its seller chose to do (and failed at doing).

seawolf

I agree with Often1. At this point, it does appear bidders are interested in assets not operations.

SK2751

A completely generic answer: one thing is what they are interested in, another is what are conditions on getting it. Negotiating some obligations on their part within the entire deal is plausible. It is somewhat wrong to see the negotiations as one sided picking up assets. These are negotiations, not LH coming into a shop and picking up a box of cereals.

Disclaimer: I have no idea what is actually being negotiated. So please don't anybody interpret my words as "there is hope for your flight to happen". That hope is rather slim.

thbe

I think, that your point of view is not really fair.

LH is not just a bidder. LH started negotiations with Etihad last year. Every other airline, company or business people were free to start negotiations with Etihad about AirBerlin more than a year ago, when Etihad lost the interest to burn billions of petrol dollars at AirBerlin and Alitalia.

And LH didn't just start negotiations a year ago. The already made deals with Etihad last, including a wet-lease of 38 AirBerlin jets.

So, yes, LH had more time to get prepared for that, because they started working on that deal more than a year ago. But the competitors are to blame about that. And time is very important for the deal, because only a fast deal can be about jets AND slots.

The truth is, that most of the competitors are not interested in buying AB's jet, because they prefer the scenario, that AB will lose its slots and half of them has to go to even that competitors.

And of course no one will take over AirBerlin as a whole company. That's 100% sure, because there is no serious bidder who offered for that scenario.

EasyJet has already reduced its bid from EUR 50 millions for 30 jets to a lower amount. Maybe even this part of the deal won't take place.

At this moment LH is the only serious bidder. The offer a significant amount of money and they are willing to fund the operation costs from end of October until the deal is finally closed.

So the negotiations are about, that no one wanted AirBerlin (who really wonders about that?) and even there is no one really fighting about the assets.