Air Berlin reduces staffing in Mallorca

DESPITE the fact that Air Berlin has been the airline bringing in the largest number of passengers to Palma Son Sant Joan airport and has its own dedicated terminal, it intends to reduce its staffing level even more.

The airline has been in financial difficulty for a number of years so has steadily reduced its fleet as well as its staff and indeed has announced that in 2017, it will pass a number of routes in southern Europe to its former subsidiary Austrian airline Niki (originally founded by Formula 1 driver Niki Lauda).

Now it has announced that it intends to reduce its Palma staffing by 55 employees and intends to cut the working hours of those staff remaining with cuts depending on time of year and flight schedules.

Effectively, the company will cease to have any significance staff presence in Mallorca although the unions will fight the decision, but it may well be that it even gives up its routes and resigns from the race with other low cost airlines who are increasing their aircraft presence such as easyJet, Eurowings, Norwegian and Ryanair.

It is of course possible however that new owners of Niki and minority shareholders in Air Berlin, the UAE airline Etihad will agree that Niki should expand to take over a number of the Spanish routes including Palma.