Earlier in 2009, Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines started negotiations for the companies to merge allowing Lufthansa to purchase some of the state owned company. Lufthansa agreed to purchase Austrian Airlines onlyr after the Austrian government decided that they would assume some of the company's debt from its previous year's performance. {Breaking Travel News, 2009} The companies believe that the merger will reduce their costs overall costs through resource sharing and that it will increase both of their revenues. The companies have estimate these cost savings around $100 million dollars and hope that this will help bring Austrian Airlines out of their net loss from 2008. [MenthL 2008) This merger has a large impact on stakeholders other than just shareholders in Austria and