(Bloomberg) -- Air Berlin Plc will cease long-haul flights in the coming weeks as the insolvent German carrier gradually winds down in a process that may still yield employment prospects for the bulk of staff.
Some domestic German routes are set to be cut by the end of this week, and all inter-continental services will end on Oct. 15 as lessors recall a fleet of Airbus SE A330 wide-body jets. On the bright side, the level of bid interest suggests that 80 percent of Air Berlin's 8,000-plus workforce may get new jobs, the company said in a briefing Monday.
Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Luton, England-based EasyJet Plc were last week chosen as preferred bidders for the bulk of Air Berlin's assets. Exclusive negotiations are set to continue until Oct. 12 as time presses on the insolvency administrators to reach a deal while there's still funding to keep flights going.
Customers are still buying tickets to fly with Germany's second-largest carrier, though longer-term bookings are all but non-existent, Air Berlin Chief Executive Officer Thomas Winkelmann said at a briefing in the German capital.
Lufthansa, which has said only that it aims to take on about 3,000 workers from its rival, is bidding for Vienna-based leisure unit Niki and the LGW turboprop arm, as well as parts of the main business. EasyJet is interested in areas including operations at Berlin Tegel airport.
Talks will continue with potential buyers of other assets, including Thomas Cook Group Plc's Condor division, and bidding for the maintenance arm will continue until Oct. 6, Winkelmann said.
Lower Pay
Lufthansa last week said its main aim is to secure 38 aircraft and crews that it currently leases from Air Berlin. Pilot union Vereinigung Cockpit said Monday that Europe's third-biggest carrier wants to pay pilots about 30 percent less than they get now. Air Berlin is also open to offers for its maintenance arm through Oct. 6, Winkelmann said.
As Air Berlin runs down its flights, a route between Dusseldorf and Los Angeles ended today, and services to Munich from Hamburg and Cologne/Bonn airports will cease on Friday. Further timetable adjustments are imminent, the carrier said. At the same time, it added, “stable flight operations are a prerequisite” for a successful transition to new ownership.
Air Berlin wasn't clear about how so many of its employees would find new jobs in the breakup, but Winkelmann indicated that the local Berlin government might seek to recruit from the airline to fill some of its 4,000 vacancies.
To contact the reporters on this story: Chris Reiter in Berlin at creiter2@bloomberg.net, Richard Weiss in Frankfurt at rweiss5@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Eric Pfanner at epfanner1@bloomberg.net, Christopher Jasper
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