Foundation by British Airways Deutsche BA was established in 1992, when
British Airways (BA) acquired a 49% stake in the
Friedrichshafen-based regional airline Delta Air. BA acquired the remaining shares in 1997. on sales of around €265m. 3 million passengers flew on dba aircraft in the year ending March 2005. The airline was owned by Intro Verwaltungsgesellschaft (80%) and Martin Gauss and Peter Wojahn (20%), and had 660 employees (at January 2005). On 17 February 2006, dba announced the purchase of 60% of
LTU. Hans-Rudolf Wöhrl, the majority owner of dba, planned to link the operations of LTU and dba, with dba flying inside Germany and LTU serving international destinations. It would allow LTU to increase its longhaul services by providing feeder services to
Munich and
Düsseldorf. LTU managing director Jürgen Marbach took a 24% stake in the carrier.
Sale to Air Berlin operated for
Air Berlin in 2007. In February 2006 Lutz Helmig acquired a 25.1% stake in the airline through the Aton company. On August 17, 2006, it was announced that
Air Berlin had acquired 100% of the shares in dba. The two airlines would operate under their current identities, with dba continuing to operate as an independent company under the Air Berlin umbrella, but in future would be marketed as Air Berlin ("powered by dba"). It had 700 employees (at March 2007). The winter 2006 flight schedules were harmonised and a joint schedule will be in place for the summer 2007 season. On 30 November 2008 the parent company Air Berlin dissolved the company dba and fully integrated its planes into the Air Berlin fleet. ==Fleet==