Air Berlin (1991) (Berlin Tegel) has finalized an agreement with Lufthansa Group concerning the placement of surplus Air Berlin capacity with the Group's various units. The wet-lease agreement forms part of Air Berlin's restructuring programme which will see it shifting focus to serving higher-yielding markets from its Berlin Tegel and Düsseldorf hubs.
In a statement issued late last week, Air Berlin confirmed it would place thirty-three A319 and A320 aircraft with Lufthansa's budget unit, Eurowings (EW, Düsseldorf), on six-year wet-lease contracts beginning February 2017. The jets will be based at seven airports around Germany including Eurowings' new base in Munich to be announced later this week, as well as in Vienna and Palma de Mallorca. As the aircraft begin to arrive, so Eurowings sister carrier germanwings (4U, Cologne/Bonn) will begin phasing out up to twenty of its older A320s thereby reducing overcapacity.
Air Berlin will also wet-lease five A320-200s to Austrian Airlines (OS, Vienna) with placements set for March and April 2017. The term of the contracts is also six years.
Germany's Manager Magazin has since reported that aside from the narrowbody jets, Lufthansa Group CEO Carsten Spohr was also keen on assuming Air Berlin's longhaul fleet and its domestic German services. This would further consolidate Lufthansa's position in the German market in the face of increasing pressure from Ryanair (FR, Dublin International) and easyJet (London Luton).
As it stands, to help Air Berlin through its transition phase, CEO Stefan Pichler will resign with effect from January 31, 2017. He will be replaced by Thomas Winkelmann, a former head of germanwings (4U, Cologne/Bonn) and Lufthansa's current CEO for its Munich hub.
