1978–1990: American charter airline in West Berlin Originally registered as
Air Berlin USA, the company was founded in 1978 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Lelco, an American agricultural enterprise headquartered in
Oregon, The co-founders of Air Berlin USA were: • Kim Lundgren, a former Berlin-based
flight engineer of
Pan American World Airways; • John MacDonald, a former station manager of United States supplemental and charter airline
Saturn Airways at
Berlin Tempelhof Airport in the 1960s and subsequent general manager Europe and vice president at the Berlin Tegel Airport base of the former United States supplemental carrier and charter airline
Modern Air from 1968 until 1974; • Mort Beyer, Modern Air's
executive vice president from 1967 until 1971 as well as the airline's president and vice president of the National Air Carrier Association in 1971 and founder of United States aviation consultancy Avmark. Lelco was the agriculture business of Kim Lundgren's family in the United States. Plans were made to start long-haul flights on West Berlin-
Brussels-Florida routes, in cooperation with
Air Florida (an agreement to that effect had been signed in February 1979). In 1980, two
Boeing 737-200s were leased from Air Florida. In 1981, Air Berlin USA continued its weekly scheduled Boeing 707 service on the Berlin
Tegel Airport - Brussels -
Orlando route; however, by 1982, the 707s had been phased out, and during most of the 1980s, Air Berlin USA operated only a single 737-200 or (from 1986) a
737-300. In 1990 and 1991, two
Boeing 737-400s were also placed into service.
1990–2000: New investors and expansion German reunification led to significant changes to the European aviation market, and in particular in Berlin: German airlines now gained access to the city. In 1991, Air Berlin (which had 90 employees at the time) was restructured as
Air Berlin GmbH & Co. Luftverkehrs KG, a German-registered company, with several German investors joining Kim Lundgren, the original founder, thereby bringing the ownership in line with German foreign-control requirements.
Joachim Hunold (
de), a former sales and marketing director with
LTU International, now led the company. Following an order for ten
Boeing 737-800s, Air Berlin grew and by 1999, the fleet grew to twelve aircraft. In 2001, Air Berlin and
Hapag-Lloyd Flug became the first airlines in the world to have their Boeing 737-800s fitted with
blended winglets, wingtip devices that are intended to improve
fuel efficiency. Air Berlin introduced scheduled flights (which could be booked directly with the airline rather than via a tour operator) in 1997, initially linking a number of secondary German airports to Mallorca. In the same year, the airline expanded beyond holiday destinations as low-fare flights marketed as "City Shuttle" to London,
Barcelona, Milan and Vienna started. that until then had not been served by one of the rising European low-cost carriers. In 2005, the Group reorganised its corporate structure. It established Air Berlin plc (registered in England) into which it reversed Air Berlin GmbH & Co. Luftverkehrs KG and subsidiaries. It was suggested that the reason for the group to establish a UK-based PLC instead of a German-based AG was to avoid the need to have a supervisory board and employee representation as required by the German law of
Mitbestimmung or
co-determination. In 2006, Air Berlin
went public on the
Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Originally scheduled for 5 May 2006, the IPO was postponed to 11 May 2006. The company said the delay was due to rises in fuel costs and other market pressures limiting investor demand. It reduced the initial share-price range from 15.0 to 17.5
euros to 11.5–14.5 euros. The stock opened at €12.0, selling a total of 42.5 million shares. Of these, 19.6 million were new shares increasing capital in the company, and the remainder to repay loans extended by the original shareholders and invested in the company earlier in 2006. After the IPO, the company claimed to have over 400 million euros in cash to fund further expansion, including aircraft purchases. In August 2006, Air Berlin acquired German domestic airline
dba. Flight operations at dba were continued as a fully owned subsidiary of Air Berlin until 14 November 2008, when the dba brand was discontinued due to staff strikes (dba staff were subsequently offered positions with Air Berlin). On 28 November 2006, Air Berlin ordered 60
Boeing 737-800 aircraft, and 15 smaller
Boeing 737-700 aircraft. The value of the 75 aircraft was 5.1 billion
US dollars (based on list prices at the time.) Delivery of the aircraft started in 2007. All of these aircraft were equipped with blended
winglets, to improve fuel efficiency.
2007–2012: Takeovers, expansion and new alliances s featured a special livery promoting Boeing's
Dreamliner program. in 2007, the
Airbus A330-200 (pictured) became part of Air Berlin's fleet. This long-haul aircraft enabled the airline to fly to intercontinental destinations like
Bangkok (as in this case, depicting an approach to
Suvarnabhumi Airport in 2008). In March 2007, Air Berlin took over German leisure airline
LTU, gaining access to the long-haul market and becoming the fourth-largest airline group in Europe in terms of passenger traffic. This deal led to the introduction of
Airbus A321 and
Airbus A330 aircraft into Air Berlin's fleet. On 1 May 2009, the LTU brand was discontinued. On 7 July 2007, Air Berlin announced an order for 25
Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner long-haul aircraft, with further options and purchase rights. Three additional aircraft of this type were to be leased from
International Lease Finance Corporation. On 21 August 2007, Air Berlin acquired a 49 percent shareholding in Swiss charter airline
Belair, the remainder being owned by tour operator Hotelplan. Following the deal, Belair's long-haul business was terminated, and the fleet was replaced by
Airbus A320 family aircraft operating scheduled flights on behalf of Air Berlin as well as charter flights for Hotelplan. On 20 September 2007, Air Berlin announced it intended to buy its competitor
Condor in a deal that envisaged Condor's owner,
Thomas Cook Group, taking a 30% stake in Air Berlin. However, the
rapidly increasing price of jet fuel and other considerations led to the abandonment of the deal in July 2008. In January 2008 Air Berlin introduced a new logo and corporate design. The logo is a white oval shape on a red background (suggesting an aircraft window) where the letter "a" is a white circle and two white stylised wings. The text "Air Berlin" was in lower case and written as one word. Sometimes the slogan "Your Airline" was featured as part of the logo. In June 2008, CEO Joachim Hunold offended
Catalan language speakers, when he claimed in an article included in Air Berlin's
in-flight magazine that the government of the
Balearic Islands was trying to impose the use of Catalan on Air Berlin flights from and to
Mallorca. He claimed that Air Berlin was an international airline and was not obliged to use Catalan. Hunold went on to criticise the language policy in
Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, claiming that at the time many children could not speak any Spanish. The Balearic Islands' president,
Francesc Antich, explained that his government had simply sent a letter to encourage airlines operating in the Balearic Islands to include Catalan among the languages used for onboard announcements. On 18 June of the same year, Air Berlin announced that it would reduce its long-haul services by 13 percent and its domestic services by 10 percent to increase profitability. In September 2008, Air Berlin confirmed merger talks with competitor
TUIfly, but added it was speaking with all parties. Air Berlin had, until 2007, been flying many code-share TUI flights. At the end of March 2009, Air Berlin PLC and TUI Travel PLC signed a deal by which their German flight businesses were to operate a long-term strategic alliance. Originally, each company was to take a 19.9% stake in the other and the German cartel authorities were petitioned for approval. After the Bundeskartellamt expressed concerns, the cross-ownership plan was not implemented. Instead, TUI Travel PLC purchased a 9.9% stake in Air Berlin PLC using a capital increase at a subsidiary to do so. At the end of March 2009, a strategic partnership agreement with
TUI Travel was signed, with Air Berlin and its competitor
TUIfly purchasing 19.9 percent of the other's shares. Following the deal, Air Berlin took over all German domestic TUIfly routes, as well as those to Italy,
Croatia and Austria. Also, all of Tuifly's
Boeing 737-700 aircraft were added to Air Berlin's fleet. TUIfly was to abandon all scheduled flights and rely exclusively on the charter business. In March 2009, ESAS Holding A.S., a Turkish company, bought approximately 15 per cent of the voting shares in Air Berlin. Also in 2009, Air Berlin added
Hartmut Mehdorn to the board of directors after his retirement at
Deutsche Bahn. In April 2010 Air Berlin expanded its codeshare arrangements with Russia's
S7 Airlines. Air Berlin and S7 Airlines had cooperated since October 2008. New services included codeshare flights via Moscow to
Irkutsk,
Perm and
Rostov. In July 2010, Air Berlin announced an increase in its shareholding in the Austrian airline
Niki. Air Berlin indirectly acquired 25.9% of the shares in Niki from Privatstiftung Lauda (private Lauda foundation) and in doing so increased its shareholding in Niki from 24% to 49.9%. In connection with the increase of its shareholding, Air Berlin was to grant the private Lauda foundation a 40.5 million-euro loan. The private foundation had the options to repay the loan in three years with cash or through the transfer of the remaining 50.1% of Niki's shares. , several Air Berlin aircraft displayed the alliance's logo, as seen on this
Boeing 737-800. In July 2010, it was also announced that Air Berlin would join
Oneworld, the global
airline alliance. In preparation for joining the alliance, Air Berlin made codeshare agreements with
Finnair and
American Airlines starting with the 2010/2011 winter schedule. Air Berlin planned to operate an
airline hub at
Berlin Brandenburg Airport together with its Oneworld partners from the originally planned opening in 2012. The delayed opening of the new airport made it difficult to operate a hub, as the infrastructure at Tegel was not designed for a hub. Air Berlin founded Follow Me Entertainment GmbH in September 2010 as a joint venture with kick-media ag. This joint-venture company markets image and sound media, books, games as well as events, concerts, tournaments and sponsoring. On 1 April 2011 Air Berlin completed the integration of LTU. All Air Berlin Group technical services were consolidated in a new company called airberlin technik GmbH. It also added new routes, more frequent flights and additional long-haul flights from Düsseldorf. On 15 June 2011, Air Berlin and
British Airways reached a codeshare agreement covering some flights within Europe, starting from 5 July 2011. The agreement applied to flights to over 40 European destinations served by the two airlines. CEO Joachim Hunold resigned from his position on 1 September 2011 and was succeeded by the former CEO of Deutsche Bahn AG, Hartmut Mehdorn, who led the company on an interim basis until January 2013. In November 2011 Air Berlin and
Pegasus Airlines (Turkey's largest private airline) launched
Air Berlin Turkey, aiming at the charter market between Germany and Turkey. Pegasus Airlines is 16.5% owned by ESAS Holding AS. The new airline was absorbed into Pegasus Airlines on 31 March 2013. In the third quarter of 2011, the turnover of the company amounted to 1.4 billion euros, an increase of 11%. However, operating profit decreased by almost 50% to around 97 million euros. As a result, a new bond to raise additional capital was issued. In November 2011 Air Berlin took over the remaining 50.1% stake in NIKI as repayment of a loan and became its sole owner. The brand name was retained and Niki Lauda was given a position on the board of Air Berlin. Air Berlin announced on 19 December 2011 that
Etihad Airways had increased its share of Air Berlin from 2.99% to 29.1%, for a sum of 73 million euros, making Etihad the company's largest shareholder. The deal supplied more cash to Air Berlin, and provided Etihad access to Air Berlin's European network. In June 2012, the collaboration concluded with the bonus programs airberlin business points and Etihad Airways Business Connect for
SMBs. On 20 March 2012, the entry into Oneworld was officially completed. The Oneworld network offered over 800 destinations in 150 countries. At the same time, the airline introduced the Platinum status for its frequent-flyer program topbonus. In May 2012 Air Berlin presented its new fare structure "Your Fare" including "Just Fly", "Fly Classic" and "FlyFlex" for flights from 1 July 2012. On 11 May 2012 Air Berlin opened its triweekly non-stop flight from Berlin to Los Angeles in the summer schedule, a destination which until then had only been served from Düsseldorf. On 18 December 2012 Air Berlin announced that
topbonus, its frequent flyer program, would be sold to Etihad Airways; only a 30-percent minority share would be retained. Air Berlin also announced the expansion of the existing codeshare agreement with Etihad Airways on 20 December 2012. In January 2013, the first Airbus A330-200 was introduced with a new business class which enabled a fully flat position for the first time. On 7 January 2013 Air Berlin appointed Austrian Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, former Chief Strategy and Planning Officer, as the company's CEO, replacing Hartmut Mehdorn. Air Berlin started flights between Berlin and Chicago on 23 March 2013. It cancelled the seasonal non-stop flights to Las Vegas, San Francisco and Vancouver. In March 2013 Air Berlin announced the closure of its seasonal hub for leisure destinations at
Nuremberg Airport. Only ten year-round direct routes remained. On 24 September 2014, Air Berlin cancelled the remaining 15 orders for their
Boeing 787s as well as 18 remaining orders for
Boeing 737-800s as part of their restructuring programme. In October 2014, the
Luftfahrt-Bundesamt denied Air Berlin authorization to operate 34 routes as a codeshare with co-owner Etihad from the 2014/2015 winter schedule as they would contravene the bilateral traffic rights between Germany and the UAE. Also in October 2014, Air Berlin announced the termination of flights to
Palma de Mallorca from both
Bremen Airport and
Dortmund Airport, therefore withdrawing entirely from these two German airports. Air Berlin announced a net loss for 2014 of €376m (€316m loss in 2013). The airline's revenues in 2014 stagnated at €4.16 billion. In September 2015, Air Berlin phased out the last
Boeing 737-700s owned by the company. The remaining aircraft of this type would operate on a wet lease basis from
TUIfly until 2019. All
Boeing 737-800s were to be phased out by 2016 as Air Berlin plans to focus their short- and medium-haul fleet on the
Airbus A320 family to cut costs. In November 2015, Air Berlin announced the closure of its
Palma de Mallorca Airport hub by ceasing all of the hub's seven Spanish domestic routes by 3 April 2016. Some days earlier, the airline announced plans to add flights from Düsseldorf to Boston, Dallas/Fort Worth, San Francisco and Havana by spring 2016. However, the planned route to Dallas/Fort Worth was cancelled a few weeks later due to low demand. On 30 December 2015, the administrative court in
Braunschweig ruled in favour of the German civil aviation authority (the
Luftfahrt-Bundesamt) and against Air Berlin regarding some of their codeshare operations with
Etihad Airways. The shared sale and advertising of 31 out of 83 routes which were marketed by both were declared illegal and ordered stopped by 15 January 2016 as they were not covered by the bilateral air-traffic agreement between Germany and the UAE. The Luftfahrt-Bundesamt had allowed these flights until a definite legal ruling was made.
2016–2017: Restructuring efforts In April 2016, Air Berlin announced a record loss of €446 million for 2015; the airline's revenues had decreased to €4.08 billion. In July 2016, Air Berlin confirmed that it no longer owned any of the aircraft it operates, having sold and leased back the last of the aircraft it had previously owned. A few weeks later it was reported that Air Berlin and Etihad Airways were in talks with
Lufthansa regarding the latter's acquisition of some of Air Berlin's routes outside of the Berlin and Düsseldorf hubs as well as some staff and aircraft leases. Also in July 2016, Air Berlin announced the increase of flights to the United States from 55 to 78 nonstops per week for 2017. Besides some frequency increases, Los Angeles and San Francisco were to be served from Berlin as well as by the then existing Düsseldorf routes. And a new Düsseldorf-
Orlando route was announced. A few days later, the airline announced the introduction of a business class on its short- and medium-haul flights.
The "new Air Berlin" project On 28 September 2016, Air Berlin announced
The new airberlin, a restructuring project including the reduction of its destinations from around 140 to 70, the focus on the Berlin and Düsseldorf hubs and on the smaller bases in Stuttgart and Munich, the closure of six other bases, the targeting of business travellers, focus on domestic German flights and on flights to Italy, Scandinavia and eastern Europe, the expansion of its long-haul network, and the loss of up to 1,200 jobs. Air Berlin, including its subsidiaries
Belair and
Niki, planned to cut 40 of its fleet of 118 narrowbody jets, leaving Air Berlin with its own fleet of 75 aircraft. The new fleet would be 17 Airbus A330-200 for long-haul operations and 40 Airbus A320 family aircraft and 18 Bombardier Q400 aircraft for European routes. A separate, tourist-destination-oriented unit with 35 aircraft was to be formed, perhaps operating with a partner (
TUIfly was the assumed partner as they already operate several aircraft for Air Berlin) – or sold altogether. In October 2016, Air Berlin announced plans to close four of its seven
airberlin Technik maintenance facilities and lay off 500 of their staff. On 5 December 2016, Air Berlin announced plans to sell its entire 49-percent stake in its Austrian subsidiary
Niki to its own minority owner,
Etihad Airways. Also in December 2016, Air Berlin announced the transfer of its entire fleet of 21 A321-200s to Niki and Niki's transfer of all its 5 A319-100s and 13 A320-200s to Air Berlin. In January 2017, Air Berlin announced that for summer 2017, most leisure routes were to be either transferred to
Niki or cancelled altogether and that some domestic and European city routes were to be dropped, leaving little more than the Berlin-Tegel and Düsseldorf hub operations. On 28 April 2017, a loss of
€ −781.9 million was announced for 2016, from a revenue of
€3.79 billion. Also in late April 2017, Air Berlin confirmed the creation of
Air Berlin Aeronautics GmbH, a new subsidiary which was to have its own operational licence (AOC) to take over the
wet lease operations handled by Air Berlin on behalf of
Eurowings and
Austrian Airlines. Therefore, the "actual" Air Berlin would focus on operations under its own brand name. In May 2017, Air Berlin announced it would buy
Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter entirely, in which it had a controlling stake since 2009.
Bankruptcy After
Etihad stopped financial support, Air Berlin entered insolvency procedures on 15 August 2017. On 9 October 2017, Air Berlin told its staff that it would cease all remaining operations under its own
AB flight numbers due to its negative financial outlook and bankruptcy proceedings. On 12 October 2017, Lufthansa Group agreed to buy 81 aircraft and employ 3,000 Air Berlin employees for €210 million, taking over the subsidiaries
Niki and
Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter with a total of 1700 employees. On 24 October 2017, the Berliner
Zeitfracht Group confirmed it would take over the
Leisure Cargo Düsseldorf company and its 60 employees. The creditors' committee approved a corresponding submission. Leisure Cargo conveys freight space on passenger flights. On 27 October 2017, it was announced that a 'consortium' of
maintenance, repair, and operations provider
Nayak Aircraft Services GmbH & Co. KG and Berliner
Zeitfracht Group would purchase airberlin Technik, keeping over 300 employees. The final long-haul flight, from Miami to
Düsseldorf, was operated on 15 October 2017. On 27 October 2017, Air Berlin's final flight was operated by Airbus A320 D-ABNW. It departed from Munich at 21:36 and landed at Berlin Tegel at 22:45. On 28 October 2017, it was announced that
EasyJet would absorb 1,000 employees and lease 25 Airbus A320 aircraft for flights from Berlin Tegel for €40 million. Just over six years after filing for bankruptcy and ceasing all flight operations, Air Berlin's trademark rights were sold to Marcos Rossello, noting that he does not plan on mixing Air Berlin into a new branding for his own existing
Sundair. ==Corporate affairs==