New owners for Adria coming soon
German based Intro Aviation is close to finalising a majority takeover of Adria Airways. The news comes six months after the secretive tender for the Slovenian carrier’s privatisation came to an end. Intro Aviation is a consultancy firm which has turned around several loss making airlines, including NFD (presently known as Eurowings) as well as dBa and LTU International Airlines which have since been integrated into Air Berlin. It is believed that Intro Aviation would weave its magic again and build up Adria which would then be handed over to Air Berlin, Germany’s second largest airline and Lufthansa’s arch rival.
For the first time since tender procedures came to a close, some of the bidders vying for a stake in Adria have been revealed. They include Welcome Air, a small Austrian based airline operating two turboprop aircraft and the Dutch company Panta Holdings, which last year purchased the German airline OLT Express. OLT ceased operations in January this year due to financial problems. Several financial investment firms are also said to have submitted their bids for Adria.
In February, the Slovenian government shortlisted Adria as one of five public companies whose shares should be sold within the next three months. In August 2012, the government offered 74.8% of the airline’s shares and interested parties had until September to submit non binding bids. The invitation for bids was published in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and the Flight Global magazine. The Assets Management Agency (AUKN) confirmed that ten parties submitted non binding offers but declined to give out their names. Up until now there has been little information on the progress of the privatisation process.
A potential takeover by Air Berlin could jeopardise Adria’s place within the Star Alliance family. Air Berlin is a member of Oneworld and a fierce rival of Lufthansa, which has been Adria’s traditional partner. Air Berlin has two subsidiaries – Austrian based Niki and the Swiss Belair. Since 2011, Etihad Airways from Abu Dhabi owns 29% of Air Berlin.
A nice list of disaster companies.
ReplyDeleteAir Berlin is more interested in avoiding bankruptcy itself than taking over other airlines.
if i'm not mistaken AB made it positive again!anyway i will believe it when i see it, but if it comes true it's great news!!i think there would be much more room for Adria if they exit SA and enter Oneworld, because all the region is dominated by SA (including JP&OU, with almost identical route network from LJU&ZAG).sure parental company, or (partial)owner, will want to have the most profit for themselves, but i think in Europe, LH is the greediest company by far!!!(just look at what's happening with SN, OS, Swiss...).Having said that, if JP enters oneworld it would be great, cooperating with AB,BA,IB,AY,and why not Etihad..(apart from that, not related to the subject, AY is back with their seasonal flights to LJU, and during peak summer they will increase frequency from HEL to 6 weekly!).
DeleteAir Berlin will lay off another 900 employees and reduce fleet with further 12 aircraft (on top of the 15 removed last year) in 2013.
DeleteFor sure for Adria will be much better to join oneworld than Star. It is not just OU, but in same time you have OS (same destination in exYU, but at least 2 flights per day), LH (50% of destinations are served by LH directly, at least to MUC, and lot of Germanwings flights to region), LX (some of destinations like PRN), TK (almost all destinations even with 2 flights per day), even SAS, LOT, TAP and Aegean have some Adria exYU destinations in their route map.
DeleteIn onesworld they will be almost only connection carrier for region (just few BA flights) + flights to London, Manchester, Madrid, Helsinki, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Moscow and connections to USA and other destinations via nononeworld airports.
Air Berlin 120 M evra u minusu (trenutno)... na zalost
DeleteOmg..I lost myself reading this post..Intro owns NDF which owns LTU which was acquired by Air Berlin which has two airlines Nikki and Swiss Belair which is partly owned by Etihad..and they shows the intrtest in Adria.. holly molly!
ReplyDeleteIt could be worse, you know. Lufthansa could acquire a stake at Etihad!
DeleteJust kidding.
You've got a very valid point.
Wizz is launching SKP-Göteborg (City I presume) on 31st of May. Service to be operated on Mondays and Fridays.
ReplyDeleteOT: Etihad has just accepted strategic partnership with Jat Unbelievable !!!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.aviokarta.net/vesti/1750-eihad-prihvatio-da-bude-strateski-partner-jata/
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BRILLIANT NEWS!!!!!!!!!!
DeleteWhere are all the haters now :D :D :D
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa I am soooo happy about this.
I wonder who will operate the daily flight between Belgrade and Abu Dhabi.
DeleteIf Etihad is willing to provide Jat with more aircraft then it could also mean that they will use their A319s to operate the route.
Most likely Jat will operate the route, with A319 or A320. Anybody knows what's the difference in economics on BEG-AUH with A319 instead of 733?
DeleteThat's a great news. So, at the end it looks like JAT and Adria are going to be in OneWorld, Croatia will most lkely stay under Star Alliance, BH Airlines is gone and Montenegro Airlines soon to follow the same path. Finally some rational thinking. I hope this bring more passengers and ends Lufthansa's dominance in the region they have been exploiting so much.
DeleteOf course, they finally understood that if they want to compete with the already established TK and company, they must offer DAILY flights, unlike QR's "now you see it, now you don't". Etihad is the best and most logical addition to Belgrade and probably the best partner JU could find, for mutual interest. A wedding made in heaven.
DeleteI don't think 733 has a range for the non-stop BEG-AUH. Wasn't that the reason why JAT used to make a stop in Cyprus on its flights to DXB?
Delete733 has more than 4000km of range, BEG-DXB is around 3200km. They made the stop in BEY/LCA just to fill the plane up and to consume less fuel just to carry the full load of fuel from BEG e.g flying a much heavier plane for half of the route. That's important in aviation.
DeleteGreat news, but let's not get ahead of ourselves, nothing is signed yet.
DeleteFinally, good to see that the majority of us agree on something here :)
DeleteOriginal news is : "In April, Etihad will first "screen" complete situation in Jat, and decide on further steps upon".
DeleteIf stating complete information (source:b92) makes me "hater", then let me be it.
But somehow, being hater or not, I don't think that Etihad will like the results of the screening.
However, service to AUH is likely to be opened, and short-term lease of Airbuses is not impossible. But at this moment, strategic partnership is simply not reality (yet)
And that is the minister who declares that Air Asia is 100% sure buyer, that several Serbian businessmen will buy Jat, that Turkish is 100% sure buyer, that 30 years old 737 will make Aviogenex Serbian LCC, etc. etc... And you just believe in this one more time? Congratulation. One more time I am impressed how people are naive.
DeleteActually no. This is not the same minister. While I dislike minister Dinkic he is the one who braught Fiat to buy out Zastava.
DeleteThe first thing that will be obvious to Etihad is that they need to almost completely clean out all the dead wood in the Jat HQ. At most, 1 person from each department should remain (eith everyone having to re-interview for their jobs). The unbelievable lack of commerciality and the extent to which those people are firmly stuck in '1989 mode' is beyond belief. Even if many wish to do the best thing, they are woefully short of the skills required to do so in the 21st century airline industry. Furthermore, the place is like a feudal colony with everyone thinking everyone else will stab them in the back. This kind of 'atmosphere' has to be turned over and given a good shake with a thorough injection of new blood brought in.
DeleteIt was not Dinkic who said all that bull...it, it was Minister Mrkonjic who did it.
DeleteBtw if EY and JU sign strategic partnership deal, it would be excellent! We'll see soon.
Also Belgrade - Berlin - Chicago flights? Awesome news!! Hopefully by next summer or even winter season 2013. Because it said Belgrade - Abu Dhabi this summer most likely then Chicago after that. Great news!! Belgrade will truly become a hub now! Thank you Etihad!
ReplyDeleteHow do they imagine that? With a connecting flight or with an A330 directly from BEG to BER and then to Chicago, without change of plane?
DeleteIt does look logic to use even the same plane, check this out:
Deletehttp://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=beg-ber-ord&MS=bm&DU=mi
Forget it guys. Jat cannot code-share on Air Berlin flights because Serbia is still in FAA-IASA cat2, and Air Berlin will definitely NOT make double-use of its A330 to Beg, in order to use one plane on flight to Chicago. I don't think they will even have the same flight number on sections Beg-Ber and Ber-Ord. Furthermore, chaos with Brandenburg cause reductions of planned flights, not increases. So, what BEG will get with this is only one more possibility of connecting to/from Chicago via Berlin, with 2 different flight. numbers and two different planes, both ways.
DeleteOh, yeah, I guess I'll be called "hater" for this comment :)
DeleteDon't know if you should be called a hater but that you wouldn't like anything to realize, that's kind of obvious from the tone of your comments.
DeleteNext month FAA will visit Serbia to do final check and Serbia will be granted cat 1 for direct flights to USA.
DeleteI don't think there will be flight BEG-BER-ORD vv without plane change. Air Berlin has BER-ORD route, so perhaps JAT will have BEG-BER leg so pax can transfer onto Air Berlins flight to USA.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, regarding the route on great circle map:
BEG-BER-ORD is 4376nm
and BEG-ORD is 4343nm
so, there is about 43nm difference between direct and one stop route - not a problem with one stop.
It states the flights would be with Air Berlin and just a stop in Berlin, no plane change for Belgrade - Chicago pax
DeleteUnless the Sheikhs are fouls, no one would be talking of BEG-BER-ORD flights unless they're without plane change. As of today people can fly BEG-BER-ORD with a plane change, so nothing new worth the announcement but sorry for the haters, it seem to be exactly the other way around. On the other hand, EY could launch AUH-BEG-ORD, no need to put Air Berlin into the equation.
DeleteObviously there will change of plane in Berlin. JAT started selling tickets on some routes with AB connections through their web-site.
DeleteDo you have an example of that?
DeleteThere is something new, in this care, in Berlin passengers would not have to leave the plane nor change seats, it is simply a stop which there is currenly non of !!!
DeleteAir Berlin is being considered because its parent company is Etihad as well!
Air Berlin is crap.
ReplyDeleteAs much as i like Etihad so i dislike AB.
I would prefer Etihad metal in Beg before Jat metal.
And flying via Berlin to Chicago?
A very bad idea.
AB is a very bad run airline.Etihad wasted a lot of money on them.
I know you will laugh but Jat has more potential then Air Berlin.
I love the reference to Star Alliance "family" - for Adria, that is akin to the sort of family where the husband is beating up the wife on a daily basis and the kids are sniffing glue in the local car park! Star Alliance has been one of the main external contributing factors to that airlines downfall (the main cause obviously are the ignorant members of management who thought that 'ze wonderderful Luftwaffe' would somehow 'save them, oblivious to the clear trend to low cost point to point travel on all intra-European destinations.
ReplyDeleteHahahahhahaha people what are you talking about??!? This is something on the edge of rumour! It's a complete nonsense of a BEG-BER-ORD since nobody gains nothing-neither passengers (flying time even with a tecnical stop remains the same) nor airlines with triangular services which are completely out of date! The only thing that can happen is JAT to start AUH with new planes! But this is also too ambitious for JAT and yet pls give me a break it's April and there's nothing of new planes, crew training...Everything with JAT is future continuous wishfull thinking except that Etihad managers will come to BEG. Everyone who knows about international business will confirm that making such deals is not done with just one visit and documents showing. We are all hungry for good news about JU but pople don't be so naive pls!!
ReplyDeleteI think this is great news! Serbia pays 170m euro debt buys 6 new planes. Etihad takes over Jat and no longer Serbian company.
ReplyDelete