airberlin has reached an agreement with the aircraft manufacturers, Airbus and Boeing, with regard to an optimization of its order books. The agreements stipulate that deliveries of new aircraft originally scheduled for 2012 and 2013 will be partly postponed until 2015 and 2016, to adapt airberlin's capacity growth to its ‘Shape & Size' earnings-improvement program. The agreements relate to Boeing 737 family and Airbus A320 family aircraft. For 2012 and 2013 31 aircraft will be delivered to airberlin, whereas the delivery of 19 aircraft will be postponed. Through this optimization of its order books, airberlin's debt load is eased, in particular for the years 2012 through 2014, and the delivery of new aircraft is also secured until 2016.
Ulf Hüttmeyer, airberlin's CFO, commented: “The agreements for 2012 and 2013, including the postponement of 11 aircraft of the Airbus A320 family and 8 aircraft of the Boeing B737 family, illustrate our cooperation with Airbus and Boeing, which is based on mutual trust. The agreements are also an important step for airberlin towards the optimization of our fleet requirements in light of the current market conditions. At the same time, our investment requirements, based on current average list prices, will be reduced in particular by $508 million in 2012 and by $1,128.4 million in 2013. Moreover, the agreements with respect to the future fleet support the program ‘Shape & Size' due to a more efficient fleet structure as well as improved fleet productivity, in line with the optimized capacity growth.”
