Germania goes bust

German carrier Germania has announced it has terminated all flights and is filing for insolvency, citing the increasing cost of fuel and the current strength of the US dollar.

The company made the decision — which hits Germania’ sister company Germania Technik Brandenburg but leaves subsidiaries, the Swiss airline Germania Flug and aircraft-crew-maintenance-insurance (ACMI) carrier Bulgarian Eagle, unaffected – late Monday night, after plans to resolve the issues with an injection of EU15 million (USD 17.2 million) failed to materialise.

Chief executive Karsten Balke, said: “Unfortunately, we were ultimately unable to bring our financing efforts to cover a short-term liquidity need to a positive conclusion. We very much regret that consequently, our only option was to file for insolvency. It is of course the impact that this step will have on our employees that we regret the most.

“I apologise to our passengers who now cannot take their Germania flight”

All of them as a team always did their best to secure reliable and stable flight operations – even in the stressful weeks behind us. I would like to thank all of them from the bottom of my heart. I apologise to our passengers who now cannot take their Germania flight as planned.”

This is bad news for German aviation which saw its second biggest operator after Air Berlin also filed for insolvency and halted operations in 2017. Air Berlin’s fleet was folded into Lufthansa’s aircraft roster.

What will happen to Germania’s fleet of  25 A320neos, 19 Airbus A319s, six A321s, four Boeing 737-700s and one A320 has yet to be decided.