I just can’t get over the situation in Germany right now between Lufthansa, Etihad, and airberlin. On the surface this all seems so backwards — Lufthansa is essentially bailing out their biggest regional competitor, and Lufthansa is also finally partnering withEtihad,a carrier they’ve claimed has threatened their very existence for years. But over a very…
Continue reading: The Airberlin, Etihad, And Lufthansa Threesome Heats Up Even More
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It's not a rumor anymore, that Thomas Winkelmann will be the new CEO. Here is the (german) press release from AirBerlin: http://www.airberlingroup.com/de/presse/pressemitteilungen/2016/12/18_airberlin-Board-ernennt-neuen-CEO
Knowing nothing about German anti-trust law (or the economics of Lufthansa or AirBerlin), how much does this look like it is moving toward an actual merger or some sort of incredibly close non-merger relationship?
@Ken: I'm not an expert in the field of anti-trust law, but worked in neighbouring fields in politics quite some time. That said, I don't see any major difficulties anti-trust wise. Neither in Germany nor in the European Union (both perspectives are relevant in this case). Even though a merged airberlin+Lufthansa would have a very strong position in the German market, we would still be far from a monopoly. That's mainly due to the fact that trains and buses play an (increasingly) important role in the domestic market as flying doesn't give you (any) or at least no big time advantage. Moreover, the domestic market is no longer "controlled" by AB and LH. Transavia started flying Berlin-Munich this year, Ryanair has four daily flights between Berlin and Cologne and so on. The whole anti-trust thing might get more interesting in an European perspective due to the increased market power of Lufthansa in Central Europe (with Austrian, Brussels, Eurowings, Swiss, ...). Yet, I doubt there will be big problems (they might have to give away some slots and so on...)
@ Naif:
AB is in oneworld & LH in *A. In my opinion, AB would probably be annoyed if Etihad joins *, though LH would probably be pretty happy about it.
AB was always going to leave oneworld, we all knew that. So was AZ leaving SkyTeam and the joint venture between DL/AF/KL/AZ. What caught us off guard is that AB is now going to merge with LH, and therefore, be *A! LOL!
This should not surprise anyone. The norms of competition and corporate governance do not seem to apply to Germany. This only looks funny if viewed through the lenses of an Anglo-Saxon.
Is the interest of German consumers secondary in all of this? Some might argue not so, if the German model is preserved in the long term, with such interventions in the market.
Well AB sold their frequent flyer program to Etihad, so no matter what they want does not count. Etihad owns their program!
@Lucky-Great title, made my day! But when you say Germanwings, don't you mean Eurowings? Didn't they merge?
more rumors concerning Etihad's strategy of investing in European Airlines and a potential departure of CEO James Hogan:
http://www.reuters.com/article/etihad-airways-restructuring-idUSL5N1EF5TW