airberlin welcomes today's decision by the EU Commission to give the green light to the KfW’s transitional credit of 150 million euros to airberlin.
airberlin CEO Thomas Winkelmann said: “the government’s timely support has made a decisive contribution towards airberlin being able to continue flight operations despite having begun insolvency proceedings. Thanks to the proactive assistance from the Federal Government, we can continue the search for new investors at full speed. From the very beginning of these negotiations, we have placed great importance on retaining as many jobs as possible. That will not change”.
The chief representative of airberlin in the proceedings, Frank Kebekus, said: “The swift approval of financial support for airberlin by the EU Commission is a positive sign for the search for new investors. Any interested parties have the opportunity to make an offer for airberlin or parts thereof up until 15th September.”
Background: on 15th August 2017, airberlin filed an application to open insolvency proceedings under self-administration. Without guaranteed financial support at this time, airberlin would have had to shut down operations immediately after the application for insolvency was submitted. The transitional credit will be provided by the KfW.