Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH
Hamburg Airlines managing director Udo Klien confirms that the carrier will fold at the end of the year, after the failure of partnership talks with regional carrier Augsburg Airways.
Augsburg is now planning instead to extend its Hamburg operations within its existing Team Lufthansa franchise, and is also setting up new bases at Saarbrücken and Dortmund.
Augsburg managing director Olaf Dlugi says that "lengthy" co-operation talks have "failed to come to fruition".
He adds that the discussions were never designed as a rescue, but sources close to the talks claim that Hamburg itself was keen to be acquired. They add that Augsburg declined after it became clear that it would be legally obliged to take on the whole Hamburg workforce of 300 people, potentially leaving it with a hefty bill for redundancies.
Klien says that the decision to cease operations has been approved by the company's supervisory board, and came about because of the failure of the nine-year-old operation to turn a profit. The decision was initially resisted by airline owner, hotel and restaurant entrepreneur Eugen Block.
Negotiations on a redundancy plan for the workforce are still under way. About 90 flightcrew and maintenance staff for the Bombardier de Havilland Dash 8 fleet are being offered jobs at Augsburg from January 1998.
Meanwhile, Augsburg has announced an expansion of its fleet to 14 aircraft, acquiring new Dash 8Q-200s and -300s. The company hopes to base five new aircraft at Hamburg immediately, but could hold off on a fifth purchase until the end of March 1998, if there is a delay in employing new staff.
Augsburg is also acting as an intermediary for the sale back to Bombardier of Hamburg's fleet of three Dash 8-100s and two Dash 8-300s. Hamburg's jet-powered fleet of four BAe 146s is being returned to British Aerospace Asset Management - Jets, which is leasing them to Eurowings, Germany's largest regional carrier.
Source: Flight International
