-
Announcement
-
Simtropolis Returns! 05/26/2026
See here for details about our site recovery efforts.
-
Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'air berlin'.
Found 1 result
-
The Demise of Air Berlin and its Consequences
TekindusT posted a topic in The Transit and Aviation Geeks Club's Topics
If you keep an eye on the commercial aviation world, probably you've heard about Air Berlin bankruptcy. If you're not familiar with that, in the spoiler there's a quick recap: (EDIT: Note the livery displaying with advertisement of BER Berlin-Brandenburg Airport. People are still laughing about that.) Myself living in Berlin, the demise of this company meant more than one more airline going bust. It is one more hit to a city that can't really get it straight with its transport infrastructures. Air Berlin put Tegel airport in the map and was the only airline that used it as a hub (with reduced operativity as TXL isn't ready to function as a real hub). It carried the name of the city around and, so far what I have read, many saw it as a flag carrier for the city, in "substitution" of a Lufthansa uninterested in Tegel. Not everything was romantic though. In my very own opinion, Air Berlin earned its demise. I've flown with them a couple of times and basically they offered the same as low-cost airlines for a more expensive price in their European destinations (although the crew gave every passenger a chocolate in the shape of a heart after landing). Not a good way of operating these days in Europe. The airline expanded too far, too quickly, opening far-flung, short-lived routes to Las Vegas and Dallas/Fort Worth from their Düsseldorf hub (its long distance hub, a real one) in direct competition with flag carriers first and with long range LCCs later. They especially targeted many North American destinations that simply offered not enough demand. Probably this is not the only cause of their losses, but poor planning is. All in all, the demise of Air Berlin means a huge shake for air travel in Berlin and all around Germany and, truth be said, a shakedown on Berlin travelers. EasyJet and Lufthansa are tearing down the airline as we speak, and beneffiting of the left out aircraft and valuable landing slots at Tegel. These are especially coveted, as TXL is quite a congested airport. Lufthansa needed to act fast to fill in the gaps Air Berlin left all over Germany, but sure they are wildly profiting from that. In a desperate measure, Lufthansa is deploying a B747-400 on the Frankfurt-Berlin route to cope with the increased demand, which will bring TXL to a strain, as this Cold War relic airport is clearly unprepared to host large jumbos and to make them turnaround in only 50 minutes. Passengers will need to board by walk on an apron area. Residents around Tegel runways ain't too happy about that. And all around Germany, Lufthansa and its subsidiaries have become a monopoly controlling all inner German air traffic, and fares are already skyrocketing due to the increased demand and the aim of earning easy money. Germany is a country where right now; coach, rail and air travel belong to only three monopolies: Flixbus, Deutsche Bahn and Lufthansa Group. It feels like if you're in a budget, you're forced to go by bus. A slow, dirty, crowded and with malfunctioning Wi-Fi bus. If you're middle class, you go by train. And if you're a business traveler, you go by plane. Citizens of first, second and third division in today's egalitarian Germany. And there's nothing you can do about that besides BlaBlaCar. EasyJet has struck the Deal of the Century with Air Berlin's empty landing slots and aircraft. Lufthansa wasn't really interested in them and EasyJet was seeing how Ryanair has consistently grown larger and larger at Schönefeld airport, flying an impressive 42 destinations from there. This could be easily felt at some point in mid-2016, I simply stopped flying EasyJet as fares were consistently more expensive than those from Ryanair. EasyJet is stationing in the next months a bunch of ex-Air Berlin A320 family aircraft, which are already compatible with the all A320 family EasyJet fleet, and opening a second operating base in Tegel. EasyJet will become in the next months the leading airline in Berlin, present at both airports and challenging the monolithic Ryanair position at SXF. For travelers, soon we will start hearing stories about "I booked a flight with EasyJet and I missed it because I automatically headed without my morning coffee to Schönefeld airport (as it's been done for years) and this specific one was departing from Tegel". I hope you never hear it from me, though. What are your thoughts on all this situation, and especially, on the new monopoly rising in Germany? What could have Air Berlin done better?
