I will buy airberlin to stop a Lufthansa monopoly in Germany

“I like to buy airberlin, and I want to buy the airline as a whole,” these are the words of German entrepreneur Mr. Hans Woehrl. A spokeswoman for his company INTRO-Verwaltungs GmbH told Reuters news agency, Mr. Woehrl was planning a bid for the bankrupt German airline. Mr. Woehrl thinks, buying airberlin was the only way to avoid the creation of a German airline monopoly with Lufthansa as the only major player.

He is married with CSU member of the German parliament and former Miss Germany Dagmar G Woehrl. He has five children from his two marriages.

In 2011 Woehrl started an airline by the name of flynext and offered European flights. Already in October 2011 he sold the airline to Germania. Flynext was called Germania Express.

Together with Peter Oncken, Rudolf Woehrl took over Intro Aviation GmbH, a consulting and investment firm. In December 2013 it was confirmed Intro Aviation bought CityJet and VLM Airlines from Air France-KLM. The airlines merged with Intersky as a regional European airline.

Intro Aviation told Reuters buying airberlin was the only way to avoid the creation of a German airline monopoly with Lufthansa as the only major player.

Earlier German magazine Capital reported Woehrl was thinking of teaming up with other investors to make a takeover offer for Air Berlin, citing people familiar with the matter.

“INTRO already declared its interest years ago to take a majority stake in the Air Berlin group jointly with additional investors. This interest still exists,” the spokeswoman said in an emailed statement, adding other investors were involved.

“No offer for airberlin has been submitted so far because there are concerns that the loan by the government is meant to deliberately promote a monopoly structure that seeks to block offers from investors right from the start,” the INTRO spokeswoman said.’

According to a Reuters article airberlin has been in preliminary talks with a total of three aviation firms, including Lufthansa over the sale of its assets, Chief Executive Thomas Winkelmann told a newspaper.

A source has said easyJet  was also part of the negotiations, while Thomas Cook’s German airline Condor said it was ready to play “an active role” in Air Berlin’s restructuring, without being more specific.