Air Berlin (1991) (Berlin Tegel) has announced that its subsidiary Leisure Cargo will be acquired by the German logistics company Berliner Zeitfracht Group.

Zeitfracht's Managing Director Wolfram Simon has said negotiations for acquiring the airline's airberlin technik MRO business are ongoing, and should be completed soon.

"Our approach to strategically integrate the airberlin subsidiary Leisure Cargo into our freight business is an important step for the future success of the Zeitfracht Group," Simon said in a statement. "We look forward to taking this step together with the dedicated employees of Leisure Cargo."

Air Berlin is in the hands of administrators following its collapse in August. Parts of its business have already been sold off to Lufthansa (LH, Frankfurt International) (pending European Commission approval), including LGW - Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter (Dortmund) and Niki (Austria) (Vienna), as well as twenty other aircraft to be transferred to Eurowings (EW, Düsseldorf). A deal between the Air Berlin administrators and easyJet (London Luton) to transfer up to 25 A320 family aircraft for the latter's plan to launch operations from Berlin Tegel has apparently not yet been reached given no announcement has been made following the end of a period of exclusive talks last Friday. Reuters reports that a source "familiar with the matter" would have confirmed that the administrators are now negotiating with both Condor (DE, Frankfurt International) and easyJet in parallel regarding the sale of some remaining Air Berlin assets.