German aviation investor Hans Rudolf Woehrl late Sunday said a company controlled by his INTRO Group had submitted a E500m offer to buy insolvent Air Berlin. Air Berlin filed for bankruptcy protection in August, spurring interest from several buyers seeking to snap up about 140 leased aircraft and valuable take-off and landing slots in Germany. Woehrl, who bought German airline Deutsche BA from British Airways for a nominal 1 euro in 2003, said Air Berlin's insolvency administrator had been shown a letter of credit for E50m, to guarantee an initial payment for his bid. The full offer was for E500m, INTRO Verwaltungs said. "It is a bid for the whole of Air Berlin," Woehrl's INTRO-Verwaltungs said Sunday, adding that it planned to pay a further E450m in instalments. <br/>
oneworld
Airberlin, which filed for bankruptcy last month, is to close all of its long-haul routes to the Caribbean from Sept 25 because of cuts to its long-haul fleet. The airline said Monday said its entire Caribbean network will be closed, including flights from Dusseldorf to Curacao (Dutch Antilles), Cancun (Mexico), Havana and Varadero (Cuba), as well as Punta Cana and Puerto Plata (Dominican Republic). Airberlin has already announced plans to close all of its long-haul routes from Berlin Tegel—including Berlin-Abu Dhabi—as well as cuts to its Dusseldorf network. Berlin-Los Angeles and Berlin-San Francisco will now stop 4 weeks earlier than originally planned, from Oct 1. Dusseldorf-Boston Logan will also close, which is also earlier than expected. <br/>
Malaysia Airlines maintains that it is on track to return to profit in 2018, despite suffering through a challenging 3 months ended June 30 as its domestic and international network performance diverged. The airline says in its latest quarterly update that conditions were "tough" due to heightened competition and adverse foreign exchange movements. Whilst not providing any figures, the carrier says that revenue for the 3 months grew 8% year-on-year, off the back of ASKs growing 1.8%. Load factor, however, contracted 1.6 percentage points to 77.8%. Network-wide, yield was marginally up to 21.4 Malaysian cents from 21.2 cents. On its international network, the carrier's loads increased by a whopping 16.9 percentage points to 78.8%, whilst its average fare fell 4.5%. <br/>
American Airlines Group is expanding basic economy fares to more domestic flights to compete with budget carriers such as Spirit and Frontier and major carriers that already sell the low-cost, no-frills tickets. The move by American came after the airline tested basic economy on dozens of routes in the US, Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean. It also comes at a time when United Airlines is reportedly dialing back basic economy fares. The tickets often cost about US$40 less per round trip than a standard economy seat. American also may start selling similarly low-priced, no perks tickets to Europe as soon as next year, one of the carrier’s top executives said last month. <br/>