Germania (Berlin Schönefeld) is in early talks with Swiss retail firm Migros' tour operator Hotelplan, concerning the possible outsourcing of charter flights to the carrier. The Schweiz am Sonntag paper says Hotelplan is in the process of dumping Edelweiss Air (WK, Zurich) citing the local operator's higher costs. If plans go ahead, Hotelplan and Germania would establish a new Swiss carrier that would allow the new joint venture operator to also operate charter flights to destinations outside the European Union.

Hotelplan currently also works with Travel Service Airlines (Prague Václav Havel) which operates B737-800s from Zurich on its behalf but given its Czech air operator certificate, Travel Service has been unable to secure traffic rights for flights to Egypt with these flights now being operated by Edelweiss.

"If the contracts are signed, which we expect to happen soon, then flights will start operating from the summer of 2015," a spokeswoman said.

Hotelplan organizes and sells foreign package holidays and, prior to using Edelweiss, had also used the now defunct Hello (Basel/Mulhouse/Freiburg, CH).