As of today, Air Berlin is now bankrupt....officially.
What the news media says is that a government loan has been arranged and the airline will continue to fly while details are worked up to sell them off. This could take weeks, and maybe even months....but the deal might be easier to work up now....since it is bankrupt.
The original airline....back in 1978....was a simplistic operation with a couple of planes and all they did was launch from Berlin to three or four airports in Germany. All the way up to 1990....they were a small operation (maybe a hundred employees at the very most).
Then in the 1990s....they were a discount airline and expanded out to a dozen planes.
In the 2004 period....they expanded again and over the past decade, their intention was to be the number two airline of Germany. Lots of money came in, and their big claim for the future (figuring around 2010) was a hub position at BER (the new Berlin airport). Well....it never opened, and the big profits that they kept expecting....never came.
Will they survive on? Rumor has it that Lufthansa is still interested and might make the purchase....but I would guess that they will downsize the operation and just aim for a dozen airports around Europe.
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