Lufthansa yesterday closed on a transaction that allowed it to acquire 20 Air Berlin aircraft, Air Berlin’s ‘NIKI’ subsidiary as well as AB’s LG Walter operations.    The deal amounted to $210 million Euro (approx. $250mm USD).

In return, Lufthansa agreed to protect all jobs that were affected specifically by this deal.   In other words, LGW and NIKI employees do not need to fear for their jobs.

In his comments, LH Boss Carsten Spohr indicated that Lufthansa would infuse over $1 Billion Euro into the Air Berlin acquisitions which will cover updates and upgrades to the aircraft, as well as future aircraft acquisitions for LH’s LCC Eurowings, which is where all the Air Berlin assets will be assigned to going forward.

Several large parts of Air Berlin have yet to be sold.  It appears that Easy Jet and Thomas Cook / Condor will also benefit from the liquidation of Air Berlin, though no specific deals have been announced.   Ryanair has apparently been blocked out of any chance to benefit from the Air Berlin garage sale.

During this recent shopping spree, Spohr also suggested that Lufthansa would very much be interested in Alitalia.  Though he firmly denied any interest in acquiring the struggling carrier in it’s current form (which is basically as bad as Air Berlin’s condition), he did suggest that Lufthansa would be very interested in helping the Italian gov’t create a ‘New’ Alitalia. I thinking ‘Lufthalia’??