Airberlin bidder looks to focus on holiday routes

frankfurt — A German businessman joined the field of potential bidders for insolvent airberlin on Monday, proposing to focus on only a few routes to holiday destinations.

Airberlin, Germany’s second-largest airline, filed for bankruptcy protection in August. Now the carrier is to be carved up, most likely among several buyers, with about 140 leased aircraft and valuable take-off and landing slots in Germany up for grabs.

Skora, who owns a hostel in Berlin and says he earned a pilot’s licence in the United States, is looking at airberlin’s books and will then decide whether to submit a formal bid for some of its assets, he told Reuters on Monday.

Any bid would be made jointly with a consortium of investors from Canada and the United States, he added, without providing details.

His proposal would see airberlin return to its roots as a holiday carrier and pass on long-haul and a number of European destinations to German flagship carrier Lufthansa and Britain’s easyJet.

“I believe strongly that it is possible

I believe strongly that it is possible to continue flying with the basic business with which everything started. I mean routes such as Majorca and other selected destinations Skora, German businessman

to continue flying with the basic business with which everything started. I mean routes such as Majorca and other selected destinations,” he said in a statement earlier on Monday.

Lufthansa has government backing to take over large parts of airberlin. EasyJet and Thomas Cook’s Condor are also seen as likely bidders.

German weekly Der Spiegel reported on Friday that Utz Claassen, a former chief executive of German utility EnBW, was also bidding for airberlin assets with a “highly potent and very reputable international investor”. In an interview with daily Handelsblatt, Claassen declined to confirm his interest, citing confidentiality. —