FROM: BERLINER MORGENPOST | MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2019
Marius Langas laughs as the Hungarian airline Wizz Air’s plane flies towards the runway at Schönefeld Airport this afternoon. From the windows of the plane, you should be able to see what’s lying on the grass next to Langas. “That must look pretty good,” says Langas, pointing to the red lettering. Langas, an air traffic control employee in the tower at Schönefeld Airport, has erected a memorial to the former airline Air Berlin right next to the airport’s approach lane, so to speak. For a few weeks now, the nine letters have been mounted on the area, which belongs to the logistics company Rieck. Its Managing Director Patrick von Oy says of the memorial: “For us as a Berlin-Brandenburg company, Air Berlin always had a special significance for this region, which we are happy to honor in this way.”
The airline’s bankruptcy has left a huge gap
Air Berlin, once Germany’s second-largest airline, had to file for insolvency in August 2017. The bankruptcy hit Berlin as an air traffic location to the core: the British airline Easyjet and the Lufthansa Group were able to close the gap in domestic German and European flights caused by the Air Berlin insolvency relatively quickly. But even more than two years after the last Air Berlin flight, the city is hardly represented in the global long-haul network.
There is also a human component: more than 8,000 employees lost their jobs after the insolvency. The flying staff in particular found a job again relatively quickly. However, many employees also had to be retrained for new jobs. This took place primarily with the help of a so-called transfer company, which was also co-financed by the state of Berlin. According to the employment agency, the majority of the former Air Berlin workforce has now found a job again. Marius Langas also sees the new Air Berlin memorial as a kind of place of pilgrimage for the airline’s former employees. A memorial plaque with a brief history of the airline is to be erected in the coming months, Langas announces. It will also include the names of the supporters who made the memorial possible in the first place through their donations.
Monument should also be a reminder of mismanagement
Langas, who works for air traffic control in Schönefeld, started a fundraising campaign on the internet in the summer – a so-called crowdfunding campaign. Since then, he has collected a total of 7,300 euros. The project now has almost 150 supporters. The core of the idea: two logos formerly mounted on a hangar in Selchow near Schönefeld with lettering from the former Berlin airlines Air Berlin and Germania were to be rebuilt as a memorial at a different location. “Air Berlin and Germania should not be forgotten. Everyone who sees these huge letters and logos should feel a bit reminded of that time,” says Langas. In addition, the memorial should also be a “reminder of how mismanagement and greed can cause an entire aviation region to falter”, Langas continues.
Langas used the money raised to finance the transportation, installation and purchase of the memorabilia. Following the bankruptcies of Air Berlin (August 2017) and Germania (February 2019), the lettering was owned by Lufthansa Bombardier Aviation Services (LBAS), which took over the airline’s technical site in Selchow after the Air Berlin insolvency. The Germania logo and lettering as well as a second Air Berlin lettering, which Langas was also able to purchase, have now found a new home. Carsten Milbach, operator of the Fehrbellin airfield northwest of Berlin, has also generously supported the project, says Marius Langas. The lettering on the small airfield will be unveiled in April.
