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Air Berlin’s death throws are finally coming to an end, with news reports in both Reuters and Bloomberg confirming that the airline is to cease all flight operations on October 28, 2017. The announcement finally puts to bed the sorry story of Air Berlin, which filed for insolvency along with its frequent flyer program Top Bonus a couple of months back.
After that came the rumors that the airline would be scrapping its long-haul operations in October, followed by the confirmation that long-haul operations would cease on October 15. Rumors then surfaced that the airline was to stop flying in early November, as attempts to rescue it and the different bids over its assets where considered, and now the rumors have been confirmed that the airline will be finally put out of its misery on October 28.
The biggest winner from Air Berlin’s demise will be Lufthansa which is hoovering up quite a few of its planes and routes. While EasyJet was initially in the running for some of the routes and planes, it appears the airline is now focusing more on the UK market after the collapse of Monarch airlines last week, which left more than 100,000 people stranded overseas.
Air Berlin has advised its employees to start looking for alternate employment, and the company through the administrators is taking as many steps as possible to find other employment for its 8,600 staff.
Overall
It is never good news to see an airline go under, however with all the uncertainty around Air Berlin, and the fact that it took months for the airline to cease operations finally, it is probably a positive that there is a certainty now and both employees and passengers can move along with their lives.
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RIP Air Berlin. Def will miss you next time @ DUS airport.
A sad day for aviation in general.
Good bye Airberlin, you will be missed.
Yeah, Lufthansa must be very happy at the moment. This is not good for competition.
Bad news for the employees and even though less dramatically for owners of Air Berlin tickets, Topbonus members, One World members.
It seems that the only winner is Lufthansa!
Its a pity as an Asian traveller. Very useful for intra Europe routes for connecting from Asia
Another one bites the dust. Shame.
Very expected.
Is Alitalia “too big to fail” like we thought some of our banks were?
Absolutely not — it’d be more of a national pride thing I would think.
Rip Airberlin , I hope another carrier will take Airberlin Oneworld place .
It is a very sad end, and particularly distressing for their employees. I hope the all quickly find new jobs.
As I mentioned earlier in this post, most if not all of the AB aircraft will be purchased by Lufthansa for their low cost carrier Eurowings and the agreement calls for the retention of all personnel if I have read it correctly. So it looks like no one is going to lose their jobs.
Sad. I have miles with AirBerlin
It’s actually surprising that they have given advanced warning of their shutdown. Good for employees and passengers. I remember several incidences where airlines shut down with no warning at alll leaving passengers and even flight crews stranded all over the world.
This is so sad to see.
left me with some orphans miles..oh well better than having a ticked to fly with them in November.
seems to be a terribly operated airline. lots of delays and lost baggage complains on the web.
I think we’ll see more shutdowns over time. A lot of moving parts that just get squeezed out. I hope not, because competition is good. But we’ll see.
All hail king Lufthansa
I guess I will never have the opportunity to fly Air Berlin!
There goes another airline…
There are not empty spaces in our Universe – if some airline went bankrupt, it’s mean some other airline will take their routes and their workers in lieu of them, am I right?
So many people now out of work!! Makes me very sad for them.
It’s a shame. Many unemployed.
Ouch, lose an airline, lose a competitor, lose lower prices.
Tough times for European airlines at the moment. Airberlin was quite a good company, so I will be sad to see them go. 🙁
Bye-bye, AirBerlin! No regrets really…
There will be more such airlines to shut operations.
I wonder who will be next.
Perhaps Alitalia
Alitalia? Really? Isn’t that the flagship carrier for Italy? Nations rarely let their flagship airlines hit th dust. Too much national pride.
Lufthansa is also interested in Alitalia, maybe not as an acquisition today but more so as a consultant working with the Italian government recreate Alitalia into a totally new and different company. Are they interested in this airline today. Not in it!s current condition, but………
such a shame to see so many losing their jobs
Its really a pity – Flights will get more expensive and there might even be a monopoly coming up.
Actually, Lufthansa has purchased 20 of Air Berlin aircraft, NIKI (Air Berlins subsidiary) and Air Berlins operations. As part of the deal, Lufthansa has agreed to protect all employees affected by this transaction. All these assets will be assigned to Lufthansa’s low cost carrier, Eurowings.
So it isn’t entirely gloom and doom and Lufthansa and Condor/Thomas Cooke will probably acquire the remaining aircraft and assets in the future. I’m sure they will need more employees to fill these operations positions as well.
RIP! They were not so bad…