Marabu (airline)

Marabu, styled as marabu and legally incorporated as Marabu Airlines OÜ, is an Estonian leisure airline headquartered in Tallinn, with operations based at Hamburg Airport and Munich Airport in Germany. Ticket sales are handled by Condor, who describes the carrier as a partner airline.

History
On 13 December 2022, Attestor Capital, the owner of a 51% stake in German leisure airline Condor, announced the incorporation of an Estonia-registered carrier, with operations starting in the 2023 summer season, utilising Airbus A320neo aircraft chartered from Nordica. The carrier is fully owned by German-based special purpose vehicle CD Ferienflug Hessen Holding GmbH.

Nordic Aviation Group, the parent company of Nordica, had previously disclosed their role in setting up an Estonian AOC for an unidentified customer, to start operations in Spring 2023. On 6 April 2023, Xfly, part of Nordic Aviation Group, published a video on their YouTube channel announcing that this process had been completed.

On 15 April 2023, Marabu's first aircraft, registered ES-MBU, flew the first service from Munich to Palma de Mallorca under the callsign MBU6508.

Shortly after its inauguration, Marabu faced media attention and severe criticism due to several major delays, flight cancellations and supposedly insufficient communication to customers. The airline stated technical issues with leased aircraft and missing cabin crew as a cause and planned to phase-in additional third-party operators to stabilize the schedule. Trying to stabilize its operations, Marabu cancelled their routes from both Hamburg and Munich to Tallinn before they even started and cut the flights from Hamburg to Rome after just few flights.

Destinations
The carrier serves around 20 holiday destinations in Croatia, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. It was also announced that a larger range of destinations in Germany would be served.

Fleet
As of February 2024, the Marabu fleet consists of the following aircraft: