Low-cost airlines join forces to battle Ryanair and EasyJet

Low-cost airlines Germanwings and bmibaby are to co-operate in order to compete with easyJet and Ryanair. This follows an earlier announcement that Air Berlin and Germania are to co-operate on routes, aircraft and staffing.

Germanwings is 25% owned by Lufthansa and operates ten Airbuses offering almost 3.5 million seats on 39 routes from Cologne, Bonn and Stuttgart.

Bmibaby is 30% owned by Lufthansa, operating 15 Boeing 737s on 59 routes from its UK bases and supplying over four million seats to the market.