The German airline’s brand has finally been sold six years after going bankrupt. Marcos Rossello, the creator of Sundair, is the buyer. He has “some ideas” for the future of the Air Berlin moniker.
The end began on August 15, 2017, and it has only begun. After years of losses, Air Berlin was forced to declare bankruptcy at that time. A few weeks later, the once-second-largest airline in Germany stopped flying.
The brand was then put up for sale by insolvency administrator Lucas Flöther since it was still memorable despite the grounding. Along with 180 other corporate protected trademarks and roughly 1,000 Internet domains, he displayed it in February 2018. But he failed to locate a buyer. Before now.
“Some thoughts”
The brand name Air Berlin was transferred to the Berlin-based business Air 41 on June 21. The business creates software for small- and medium-sized airlines and vacation companies. Its creator, Marcos Rossello, is well-known and was also successful in starting Sundair seven years ago.
Rossello told aeroTELEGRAPH that the acquisition had been made. “Yes, we have acquired the brand rights to Air Berlin,” he states. But, he continues, it hasn’t yet been decided what to do with it. “There are a few concepts. Everything is conceivable.
Price falls short of initial projections
Rossello considers it improbable that he will rebrand his current airlines with the recently acquired name. “Sundair is now well established,” he says. Along with the German holiday airline, he also runs Fly Air 41 in Croatia, which largely flies for Sundair. A controlling share in both was recently bought by Schauinsland Reisen.
Flöther, the insolvency administrator, had earlier thought that selling the trademark rights would result in significant profits for the insolvent estate. Many analysts concurred at the time that the name might fetch millions if sold. This objective, however, was obviously not met. The sale price for the Air Berlin trademark was 120,190 euros, according to the most recent status report provided to the creditors.
Flöther oversaw operations at Sundair.
The founder of the airline and the insolvency specialist are acquainted. Flöther participated in Sundair’s protective shield procedures in 2020–2021, during which agreements with the lessors were modified and the fleet was reorganized, as the court-appointed administrator.