Your Experience with Air Berlin

I don't fly, Denise, but I have noticed several posts here over the past few weeks about Air Berlin. While you are waiting for newer answers you might put "Air Berlin" into the Search box in the upper right hand corner of the page, and remember to click on the Go button (unlike somebody who recently forgot) and you should get plenty of recently archived answers. If you don't like doing that you can get to the previous threads by scrolling through the thread lists.

The posts were positive.

Air Berlin is Germany's second largest airline. They've been around for more than 25 years and are fine, especially on the long-haul flights. They're now owned by Abu Dhabi's prestigious Etihad Airways and - on long-haul flights - try to match their high standards. The Düsseldorf-LAX leg is operated on new Airbus A330 aircraft (it's the former LTU business, if that name still rings a bell)... Expect that flight to be at least as good as a long-haul flight operated by AA. On the intra-European, short-haul flights they operate like a budget airline. They use Boeing 737-800s or Airbus A320s, you get a free beverage and that's it. We use them a lot.

Thanks, Andreas, for your thorough reply. That's exactly the info I was looking for.

Last summer we flew Air Berlin from SFO to Dusseldorf, round trip. I was a bit concerned but we were pleasantly surprised. They were on time, very nice, decent food (wine with dinner, Brandy offered after) the only negative was that their seats are small, but whose aren't. The seat size reminded me of Southwest, very small for a long flight, but it was fine. At the time we got a great deal, so we jumped at it.