Europe’s second largest airline, Lufthansa announced that it agreed to buy 45% of Belgian Airline, Brussels Air for 65 million euros or $92 million. The German based carrier has an option to buy the remaining 55% of the company starting 2011 which might (depends on performance related factors in 2010) bring the total price to the deal for 250 million euros.There was earlier news that Lufthansa might be considering bids for Austrian Airlines, Scandinavian carrier SAS and BMI of UK.
From Bloomberg Article -
Lufthansa’s CEO Wolfgang Mayrhuber told reporters that, that the carrier is becoming a “house of
brands.” He declined to discuss possible takeover offers.“Europe needs to have an airline system that can, in the
long term, compete with big systems that are coming up in Asia,
the Middle East and in North America,” Mayrhuber said. “This
is one step in going forward.”
