Germany’s Lufthansa gets first say on Air Berlin asset sale – Union
BERLIN/FRANKFURT: A first round of formal talks for the sale of insolvent German airline Air Berlin’s assets will be held with its bigger local rival Lufthansa yesterday, ahead of other prospective bidders, a senior labour union official said.
“Only Lufthansa will initially be part of the talks ...As far as I know, the other bidders will be invited for talks afterward and then an overall package will be put together,” said Lufthansa’s deputy chair Christine Behle, who represents labour union Verdi on the company’s supervisory board.
She also told Reuters negotiations would begin on Friday and she expected them to continue through the weekend.
Air Berlin, Germany’s secondlargest airline, filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday after shareholder Etihad Airways withdrew funding following years of losses.
With many Germans travelling on their summer holidays and a September general election looming, Berlin has granted a bridging loan of 150 million euros (US$176 million) to keep Air Berlin’s planes in the air for up to three months and secure 7,200 jobs in Germany while buyers for its assets are found.
That means that the race is on to carve up the airline and obtain anti-trust approval for any deals before Air Berlin runs out of cash.
Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt has called for Lufthansa to buy a major part of the assets, saying Germany needs a ‘national champion’ in international aviation. “That is why it is urgently necessary that Lufthansa can take over significant parts of Air Berlin,” he told daily newspaper Rheinische Post.
His comments came after rival European airline Ryanair filed a complaint with German and European Union competition authorities over the handling of the insolvency process, which its chief executive describes as a ‘conspiracy’.
Germany’s transport ministry already faces allegations by the European Commission of maintaining a cosy relationship with its domestic industry and questions about whether authorities did enough to uncover an emissions scandal at carmaker Volkswagen, which is partially state-owned. — Reuters