DBA was a low-cost airline

Low-cost carrier

A low-cost carrier or low-cost airline is an airline that generally has lower fares and fewer comforts...

 headquartered on the grounds of Munich International Airport

Munich International Airport

Munich Airport , is located northeast of Munich, Germany, and is a hub for Lufthansa and Star Alliance partner airlines. It lies nearby the old city of Freising and is named in memory of politician Franz Josef Strauss...

 and in Hallbergmoos

Hallbergmoos

Hallbergmoos is a municipality in the district of Freising in Bavaria in Germany.-Economy:Augsburg Airways, a regional airline, is headquartered in Hallbergmoos...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. It operated scheduled domestic and international services and also operated charter flights for tour operators to Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and North Africa

North Africa

North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...

. Its main base was Munich International Airport

Munich International Airport

Munich Airport , is located northeast of Munich, Germany, and is a hub for Lufthansa and Star Alliance partner airlines. It lies nearby the old city of Freising and is named in memory of politician Franz Josef Strauss...

. It was acquired by Air Berlin

Air Berlin

Air Berlin PLC & Co. Luftverkehrs KG is Germany's second largest airline, after Lufthansa, and Europe's sixth largest airline in terms of passengers....

 in August 2006, but continued to operate independently, marketed as Air Berlin (powered by dba) until being dissolved by its parent company Air Berlin on November 30, 2008.

History

The airline was established in March 1992 and started operations in June 1992. It was founded when British Airways

British Airways

British Airways is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom, based in Waterside, near its main hub at London Heathrow Airport. British Airways is the largest airline in the UK based on fleet size, international flights and international destinations...

 (BA) acquired a 49% stake in Delta Air, a regional airline

Regional airline

Regional airlines are airlines that operate regional aircraft to provide passenger air service to communities without sufficient demand to attract mainline service...

 based at Friedrichshafen

Friedrichshafen

This article is about a German town. For the Danish town, see Frederikshavn, and for the Finnish town, see Fredrikshamn .Friedrichshafen is a university city on the northern side of Lake Constance in Southern Germany, near the borders with Switzerland and Austria.It is the district capital of the...

, and renamed it Deutsche BA. In April 1997, after liberalisation of the European air traffic market, BA acquired the remaining shares. Carl Michel was made CEO and he streamlined the fleet to consist entirely of 18 Boeing 737-300 aircraft, dropping secondary routes and focusing on internal German routes, feeder services to Gatwick and links to other oneworld

Oneworld

Oneworld , branded as oneworld, is one of the world's three largest global airline alliances with its central management team, oneworld Management Company, based in New York City, New York, USA. Oneworld was founded in 1999 by American Airlines, British Airways, Canadian Airlines, Cathay Pacific...

 partners, notably Iberia Airlines

Iberia Airlines

Iberia Líneas Aéreas de España, S.A., commonly known as Iberia, is the flag carrier airline of Spain. Based in Madrid, it operates an international network of services from its main bases of Madrid-Barajas Airport and Barcelona El Prat Airport....

 and Finnair

Finnair

Finnair Plc is the flag carrier and largest airline of Finland, with its headquarters on the grounds of Helsinki Airport in Vantaa, Finland, and its main hub at Helsinki Airport. Finnair and its subsidiaries dominate both the domestic and international air travel markets in Finland. The largest...

.

Rod Eddington

Rod Eddington

Sir Roderick Ian Eddington is an Australian businessman. He is currently chair of the government body Infrastructure Australia, a director of News Corporation, continuing his long association with that company, and has served in other senior positions including as former CEO of British...

 replaced Bob Ayling as British Airways Chief Executive in May 2000, starting major reviews of the airline's operations. First indications of a BA review of its German arm came in 2001 at which time Deutsche BA had amassed losses of over £15m. On May 3, 2002 EasyJet

EasyJet

EasyJet Airline Company Limited is a British airline headquartered at London Luton Airport. It carries more passengers than any other United Kingdom-based airline, operating domestic and international scheduled services on 500 routes between 118 European, North African, and West Asian airports...

 announced that it intended to pursue a purchase of former BA subsidiary Go

Go Fly

Go Fly was the name of an award-winning British airline. It was purchased by EasyJet.-History:Bob Ayling, ex-chief of British Airways, approached EasyJet's founder, Stelios Haji-Ioannou, to ask whether he could visit claiming that he was fascinated by how the Greek entrepreneur had made the budget...

. EasyJet followed with an announcement on May 8, 2002 that it had signed an exclusive agreement with British Airways giving it the option to purchase Deutsche BA. EasyJet had until March 31, 2003, or with an extension until July 3, 2003, to purchase the airline. During this time Deutsche BA would remain fully under BA control. However, EasyJet had several commitments: send three managers to the German operation, contribute £3m for capital expenditure and pay BA £366,000 per month until it exercised its option. In March 2003 EasyJet announced it had abandoned its plans to acquire Deutsche BA, citing the economic climate and employment laws in Germany.

In June 2003, BA announced plans to sell Deutsche BA to Intro Verwaltungsgesellschaft for a token sum of 1 Euro. In addition BA would invest £25m into the airline and guarantee its fleet of 16 Boeing 737

Boeing 737

The Boeing 737 is a short- to medium-range, twin-engine narrow-body jet airliner. Originally developed as a shorter, lower-cost twin-engine airliner derived from Boeing's 707 and 727, the 737 has developed into a family of nine passenger models with a capacity of 85 to 215 passengers...

s for a year. In return BA would receive 25% of any profits or proceeds from a sale until June 2006. It was rebranded as dba.

In March 2005 dba announced its intention to acquire rival airline Germania Express (gexx) which would create Germany's third largest airline after Lufthansa

Lufthansa

Deutsche Lufthansa AG is the flag carrier of Germany and the largest airline in Europe in terms of overall passengers carried. The name of the company is derived from Luft , and Hansa .The airline is the world's fourth-largest airline in terms of overall passengers carried, operating...

 and Air Berlin

Air Berlin

Air Berlin PLC & Co. Luftverkehrs KG is Germany's second largest airline, after Lufthansa, and Europe's sixth largest airline in terms of passengers....

. The gexx brand was phased out on the former airline's services, along with its Fokker F100

Fokker F100

The Fokker 100 is a medium size twin-turbofan airliner from the Fokker company. Low operational costs and almost no competition in the 100-seat short-range class made it a best seller when it was introduced in the late 1980s, but decayed due to increasing competition. Production ended in 1997 with...

 aircraft which dba has assumed the lease of. dba submitted a binding bid for ailing Greek

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 national airline Olympic Airlines

Olympic Airlines

Olympic Airlines was the flag carrier airline of Greece, with its head office in Athens. It operated services to 37 domestic destinations and to 32 destinations world-wide. Its main base was at Athens International Airport, with hubs at Thessaloniki International Airport, "Macedonia" and Rhodes...

 in April 2005, but later withdrew that bid.

In the fiscal year ending 31 March 2005, dba announced its first profit since creation in 1992, of 'between €

Euro

The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...

1m and €2m on sales of around €265m. 3 million passengers flew on dba aircraft in the year ending March 2005. The airline was owned by Intro Verwaltungsgesellschaft (80%) and Martin Gauss and Peter Wojahn (20%), and had 660 employees (at January 2005).

On February 17, 2006, dba announced the purchase of 60% of LTU

LTU International

LTU Lufttransport-Unternehmen GmbH was an airline based in Düsseldorf, Germany, now fully owned by Air Berlin. The initials stand for the German phrase LuftTransport-Unternehmen . It operated scheduled services on medium and long-haul routes, as well as charter services...

. Hans-Rudolf Wöhrl, the majority owner of dba, planned to link the operations of LTU and dba, with dba flying inside Germany and LTU serving international destinations. It would allow LTU to increase its longhaul services by providing feeder services to Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 and Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

. LTU managing director Jurgen Marbach took a 24% stake in the carrier.

In February 2006 Lutz Helmig acquired a 25.1% stake in the airline through the Aton company. On August 17, 2006 it was announced that Air Berlin

Air Berlin

Air Berlin PLC & Co. Luftverkehrs KG is Germany's second largest airline, after Lufthansa, and Europe's sixth largest airline in terms of passengers....

had acquired 100% of the shares in dba. The two airlines would operate under their current identities, with dba continuing to operate as an independent company under the Air Berlin umbrella, but in future would be marketed as Air Berlin ("powered by dba"). It has 700 employees (at March 2007). The winter 2006 flight schedules were harmonised and a joint schedule will be in place for the summer 2007 season.

On 6 September 2006, the German Federal Cartel Office cleared the acquisition of 100% of the shares of dba by Air Berlin without restrictions to allow finalisation of the takeover.

On November 30, 2008, the parent company Air Berlin dissolved the company dba and fully integrated its planes into the Air Berlin fleet.

External links

• Flydba.com
• Flydba.com (Archive)
• Deutsche-ba.de (Archive) (1996–2001)