Air Berlin

Air Berlin started in 1978 as a small US-registered carrier flying holidaymakers out of West Berlin, where political restrictions kept West German airlines from operating. It reorganised under German ownership in the 1990s and spent the 2000s buying its way up: it took over LTU in 2007 to reach the long-haul market, absorbed dba, and held stakes in Niki and other carriers. By 2015 it flew around 140 aircraft and carried 30.2 million passengers, second in Germany only to Lufthansa. The expansion ran on outside money. Etihad Airways took a roughly 29 percent stake and poured in about €1.8 billion from 2011 onward, funding a network that was bigger than it was profitable.

The losses never stopped. Air Berlin posted deficits year after year, and the Gulf cash papered over a model that did not pay for itself. On 9 August 2017 Etihad refused to release a €50 million loan tranche and declared it would provide no more support; Air Berlin filed for insolvency on 15 August. A €150 million German government bridge loan kept the planes flying through the autumn while administrators sold off the parts. Lufthansa agreed to take about 81 aircraft plus the subsidiaries Niki and LGW; easyJet took 25 A320s and the Tegel slots. The last Air Berlin flight, an A320 registered D-ABNW, landed at Berlin-Tegel late on 27 October 2017. The brand is gone. The slots, jets, and crews were divided among the rivals it had spent a decade trying to outgrow, and the insolvency administrator later sued Etihad for billions over the withdrawn support.