Air Berlin and Etihad may not offer codeshare flights – STAR

Air Berlin and Etihad may not offer codeshare flights – STAR

D as the Federal Aviation Authority prohibits major flight agreements between Air Berlin and Etihad. This falls off a central part of the cooperation between Germany’s second largest airline and the aggressively growing Arab airline. And the ailing Air Berlin is in the midst of renovation, a large source of revenue lost.

The Federal Aviation Authority (LBA) have 34 Flight agreement between Air Berlin and Etihad prohibited, said Air Berlin CEO Wolfgang Prock-Schauer. The so-called codeshare it were Air Berlin flights on which Etihad is represented by its own flight number.

From the decision of the LBA were 46,000 bookings affected. The corresponding guests would but promoted anyway. With Air Berlin has codeshare year by 100 million euros. The LBA confirmed the prohibition of certain flight arrangements. Etihad did not initially express.

Etihad has joined the loss-making Air Berlin in 2011 and holds the airline with cash injections from previously EUR 800 million and like-kind new aircraft seats on water. Without the aid would be Air Berlin before the off. In return, the state airline secured from the Persian Gulf to improve access to the German market. Because in addition to the four airports in this country that can fly to the Arabs themselves, Air Berlin will be used for further feeder flights for Etihad hub in Abu Dhabi, currently about Berlin and Stuttgart. These compounds, together with the connecting flights in Europe partly carry a Etihad flight number. And the cooperation prohibits the LBA now.

The prohibition of cooperation is, according to Air Berlin’s difficult to understand as the Code Shares were always approved in recent years. “As the economic damage would mainly at Air Berlin, the airline will take within their means all legal steps to challenge this decision,” said Prock-Schauer.

Air Berlin plugged due a hasty expansion course deep in debt and only once wrote profits over the past five years. Work is underway on a new reorganization plan for the Lufthansa -Konkurrenten. Vertices are already known: So the fleet is reduced by about ten aircraft and the number of seats offered to be reduced by ten percent. So want to fly in 2017 at the latest back into the black Berlin. In the second quarter of Air Berlin reduced its operating loss (EBIT) to EUR 6.9 million after EUR 8.1 million deficit in the same period last year.