New start-up in Estonia: Marabu Airlines

The owner of Condor, investment-company Attestor, has, on 25 November 2022, officially established a new airline in Tallinn. The airline, called Marabu Airlines, will also become a holiday-flyer. Despite its Estonian-origin, the airline will be operating out of Hamburg and Munich and is set to launch in March 2023.

To accelerate its launch, Marabu will team-up with Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance and Insurance (ACMI)-specialist Nordic Aviation Group, which will operate up to four Airbus A320neos for Marabu. It was already known that Nordic Aviation Group would fly their A320neos on the Air Operator's Certificate of Nordica for an unnamed European airline and now we know which airline that is.

Marabu is planning to have six Airbus A320neos flying in 2023 by also operating aircraft in-house and eventually operate all aircraft by themselves. Recruitment for cabin- and flight-crews has already started.

From its bases at Hamburg and Munich, Marabu Airlines will serve destinations in Croatia, Egypt, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Marabu will work closely with Condor as the flights of the start-up will also be sold through the Condor sales-network. The close link with Condor is also evident by Marabu's CEO being a former Condor-director.

The worker council and unions at Condor are monitoring the developments closely as they are concered that, later on, Attestor might move flights and aircraft from Condor to Marabu which operates with a much lower cost-base than the German-airline.

Illustration by Marabu.