Lufthansa drops plan to buy Air Berlin’s Niki unit

Niki grounded all flights after Lufthansa dropped its plan to buy the carrier from collapsed parent Air Berlin, raising the prospect of thousands of travellers being stranded ahead of the Christmas travel rush. The company, which was Air Berlin’s most valuable asset, stopped flying “for the time being,” it said Wednesday after filing for insolvency at a court in Berlin. The move came after EU competition regulators opposed the Lufthansa deal. EU antitrust officials were wary of granting Lufthansa too much market power and weren’t willing to accept the remedy package the airline had proposed. Lufthansa said it will now stop financing Niki, which it had been keeping afloat at a cost of about E10m a week since August. The German govt said it regrets the EU’s stance and will do everything it can to limit the damage to taxpayers. <br/>