Bad news – not only for tourists: The Berlin-based airline Germania, has filed for bankruptcy. The flight operation was immediately set.
It had been initiated already. On Monday evening, the German holiday airline Germania, had filed for bankruptcy and on Tuesday night the flight of a set operation. It looked in January, so could cope with Germania CEO Karsten Balke liquidity difficulties. There had been a promise, more than 15 million euros, it was called Germania. The money needed for the Airline in the short term, to be able to continue to fly.
Chronicle of a death foretold
The Emergency must have been in January, says Gerald Wissel from the consulting company Airborne Consulting. “In the case of an Airline, the business lives to a very large part of the tourist, is, in itself, a notice of the death.” It was for the organizers of the characters, that you could not plan with the Airline in the summer. “And when the summer ceases business, then the Whole thing is difficult.” Large travel companies like Tui or Thomas Cook have begun their customer to others or their own Airlines to divert, reported the Handelsblatt.
Thomas Cook has cancelled for this Tuesday all departures. Travelers are free to cancel, to a different destination or a different date of travel to rebook
In addition, it was not so easy to find in Europe someone who is willing to invest a two digit million amount, says Wissel. Such an Investor would demand a say in the matter. “Because you have to be agreed first with the business strategy and the like”, says Wissel. “Unfortunately, it is not possible for us finally to bring our funding efforts to cover short-term liquidity needs to a successful conclusion,” said CEO Karsten Balke. As a consequence, only the application for insolvency had been.
The ominous investors
Who is supposed to be the Investor, remained unclear. Yet on Monday there had been a report about a group of investors from North Rhine-Westphalia – a group under the coordination of former Airline managers, such as the “Neue Ruhr/Neue Rhein Zeitung” reported. To to the group of former Air Berlin chief Joachim Hunold. Hunold, who was from 1991 to 2011, chief of Air Berlin, had a good wire to the founder of Germania, Hinrich Bischoff. After his death in 2005, Hunold should take over the Germania and Air Berlin. The heirs prevented the but and decided to run the Airline himself.
Joachim Hunold, should he belong to the group of investors?
Ruinous price competition is squeezing the margins
2014 Balke took over the majority in Germania. The Bankruptcy of Air Berlin in 2017, he used to take over a part of the business. As Germania offered in the last year, around 40 percent more capacity than in the previous year.
For the Failure of Germania to the trade Union Verdi made a cut-throat competition among the Airlines responsible. Also, aviation expert Wissel says to the DW, Germania have suffered from low ticket prices. “We have a very high price-cost pressure,” said Wissel. We would add that the summer was difficult. “In the summer you do not need to fly in normally, the money you burn in the Winter, because the Winter is going so well.”
In addition, the company had purchased new aircraft, Wissel. So in 2016 a total of 25 machines of the Airbus A320neo were purchased-number, which should be delivered from 2020. All of this takes a lot of money. The Airline itself is the basis of the financial bottleneck with massive increases in fuel prices, and with an “exceptionally high number of technical services to the fleet”.
With the Airbus A320neo, Germania wanted to fly by 2020
The growth of Germania came also many of the smaller airports in Germany. For the it will certainly now hard, says Wissel. The airports of Rostock-Laage, Erfurt, Münster-Osnabrück would have had a significant part to Germania flights and would have to try to replace the business by other providers.
Businesses in niche markets
For decades, Germania had specialized in niche routes and are not is so come the major competitors in the enclosure. In addition to holiday flights to Majorca you had to focus on Turks living in Germany, who regularly travel to the homeland. Only a part of the fleet flew routes in the private network. Another part was to other providers leased. So Germania flew on behalf of major tour operators and a set of two aircraft for Airbus.
Overall, Germania carried on the Short – and medium-haul more than four million passengers in the year to more than 60 destinations. Together with the Swiss Germania flight operations AG and the Bulgarian Eagle Germania operating the last 37 planes.
Expensive Experiment: in 2012, expanded into Germania and West Africa. In 2014, the subsidiary Gambia Bird ceased its operations.
Of insolvency, Germania fluggesellschaft GmbH and its sister company for technical services, the Germania Technik Brandenburg GmbH, as well as the Germania flight services GmbH is affected affected. The business operations of Swiss Germania flight AG and the Bulgarian Eagle continues.
Insolvency in self-administration
Karsten Balke had fought according to Handelsblatt, to the end, and tried, the operation of the aircraft to maintain. So he had aimed for insolvency in self-administration. In this method, the company is a liquidator and a General representative. Together with the Management you try to save the company.
In the case of Air Berlin, had given such a procedure. Since the Federal government had granted a bridging loan in the amount of 150 million euros. This time, the policy of holding back. It was the Bust of “a case of application of the market economy,” says Federal Minister for economic Affairs, Peter Altmaier. To this belonged to entrepreneurial success and failure alike.
The ailing Air Berlin was supported by the Federal government, with a million credit
Thousands of passengers affected
Some of the affected Germania-passengers may hope for compensation or reimbursement of their costs. Well, it looks for a package holiday booked through a tour operator a package of flight and Hotel. You can contact the travel entrepreneur who must care for a replacement flight. Also in the case of flight bookings through travel agents that can be used to package quotas, which are insured against insolvency. The consumers have booked their flight directly with Germania, they could stay.
In the next two weeks, a total of 60,000 passengers by the setting of flight operations were affected, said the insolvency administrator Rüdiger Wienberg in Berlin on Tuesday. The German airlines want to help, to fly abroad, the stranded passengers back to Germany. To offer available seats to special conditions. The Lufthansa and the other airlines of the group, Austrian Airlines, Swiss and eurowings as well as the Charter airline Condor and Tuifly participate. Affected passengers should contact the airlines.