Etihad – airberlin codeshare agreements appeal successful

On the 4th January we reported that Etihad airlines had lodged an appeal over the revocation of 29 of its 61 original codeshare agreements with Germany’s second-largest airline, airberlin, which were put in place when it acquired a 29.2% stake in the company. Those agreements were due to be suspended from the 16th January and the suspensions would remain in place until the end of the current IATA winter schedule on March 30th, 2016.
The reason for the suspension of the specific codeshare agreements was because they were not covered by the current air traffic rights agreement between Germany and the United Arab Emirates. The appeal was lodged with the intention to obtain a temporary injunction on the Government’s decision, to last until the end of March. Today it has been announced that for 26 of the agreements the appeal had been successful, but that for 5 domestic routes, the codeshare agreement was being revoked. The court advised that the reason the international routes could continue was because they were in accordance with a bilateral agreement struck between Germany and Abu Dhabi in 2000.
Last year the German government made it clear that a number of the previously-approved codeshares were not covered by an existing traffic rights agreement between Germany and the United Arab Emirates. In December it stated it would, for the last time, only approve 29 disputed routes until January 15th, a decision that was backed by a lower court in Brunswick.