Air Berlin’s Slow Collapse Into Bankruptcy, Explained
Skift Take
Over in Italy, no one wants to let Alitalia go. The Italian national carrier is also bankrupt, but keeping the airline is a matter of national pride. There's no such love for Air Berlin. It'll probably disappear, and that'll be OK.
For an airline that has struggled for the best part of a decade, Air Berlin has managed to stick around for a surprisingly long time.
Although the writing has been on the wall since 2006’s lackluster IPO, which was followed by years of losses, it was kept afloat thanks to shareholder Etihad Airways, whose expansion attempts had seen it invest in a series of struggling European carriers.
With a new chief executive in Abu Dhabi, Etihad’s patience has finally run out, and, having had its funding pulled, Air Berlin had no choice but to file for bankruptcy.
The collapse of Germany’s second-largest airline will no doubt please its biggest, Lufthansa, and others with an interest such as TUI Group, Ryanair, and EasyJet.
These airlines have long complained about overcapacity in the German market. Several attempts to alleviate this problem have failed over the years.
“It’s been likely to happen for some time. A relatively high cost market for operators, excess capacity,
