airberlin restructuring is official!
 

airberlin announced their drastic restructuring:
- focus on Berlin and Duesseldorf hubs with 75 planes, including all their A330, with focus on US, Italy, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe;
- up to 40 A320 will be wet leased to Lufthansa Group (probably Eurowings)
- up to 30 planes & crews will be put into tourist business unit (maybe sold later?) including seasonal destinations
- 1,200 lay-offs

For travelers/topbonus members:
Good news: in short-term, topbonus earn/redeem/benefits remain on AB & partner flights, all existing award tickets honored;
in long-term, hopefully better connections with Etihad/Alitalia, better service as full-service airline, instead of full-service/low-cost hybrid
Bad news in long-term: a LOT fewer AB/OneWorld flights, especially if you don't live/travel from Berlin or Duesseldorf

the press release is here
details and impact analysis is here

Thanks for this information.
I'm supposed to fly AB in November (AUH-BER) and January (BER-FNC-BER). I don't think there'll be any problems with the first flight, but I'm concerned about the second one. Considering that it departs from BER, it should be fine. However, FNC is one of "tourist" destinations (from the point of view of press release), so I wonder if it's not one of routes which will be abandoned (moved to separate company) by AB?

This is all intended. Basically, Etihad wants to completely reduce AB's European routes in favour of intercontinental routes. Since Etihad is facing trouble securing slots in US markets, they are going to use Air Berlin as a way to expand into US markets.

It's good. Air Berlin will look more like a real traditional carrier, feeding DUS/TXL as a hub, than whatever ridiculous arrangement they have now: flights all over the place, flying to low-yield leisure markets, running a confused business class product, trying to be a LCC, and so forth.

I just hope the whole effort is successful. We need competition in the German market otherwise it will become like Britain here.

How does this relate to the news yesterday that SN is being purchased?

I have nothing against this restructuring, particularly that I like AB (well, "used to like" is more appropriate due to the fact that they refuse to give me back 75 EUR of undue charge and that they decided to cancel TXL-GDN connection :( ). I wish AB all the best but I wish also, their efforts will not affect my personal plans in negative way.

LH is bulking up Eurowings with SN and AB for both long and short haul...
Good news for miles&more members I'd guess...

Its Open Skies with UAE and USA - Etihad could launch AUH-BOS/MIA/SEA/IAH tomorrow if it wanted to. MIA is begging EY or EK to come. They could use Terminal B or C in BOS and avoid the packed Terminal E since AUH has pre-clearance.

The markets may not be there though (BOS has double daily DXB and daily DOH - MIA would have better potential) and AB is a good way of getting feed in BOS and MIA.

Would love to see BOS-TXL, even if its seasonal 3-4 weekly) come out of this restructure though.

This "new" AB works for me just fine. I use AB to fly to/from the U.S. and TXL/VIE/BUD/WAW/KRK. And it appears that nothing will be affected in that regard. Just sad to see that 1,200 employees will lose their jobs, though. However, it's better than all of the AB employees losing their jobs. Moreover, I much prefer the German market to be mainly served by Lufthansa and Air Berlin, than Lufthansa and Ryanair and/or easyJet.

Was there ever an unintended airline restructuring announcement?

There is no open skies between USA and UAE.

The American carriers are fighting tooth and nail to keep the Gulf carriers out of America.

(Apparently, that's "Diplomacy in Action")

http://www.state.gov/e/eb/rls/othr/ata/u/ae/114502.htm