Lufthansa hopes to acquire at least one airline of the Thomas Cook Group—Frankfurt-based Condor—in a move that would further consolidate the German airline’s already strong position in its home market. Lufthansa acquired large parts of insolvent Air Berlin at the end of 2017 in line with its strategy to expand low-cost subsidiary Eurowings. The German flag carrier would integrate Condor into Eurowings.

Speaking on the sidelines of Lufthansa’s annual general meeting on Tuesday, CEO Carsten Spohr said his board supported the bid—non-binding at this stage—for the airline it co-founded in 1955. “We believe that we can offer a perspective to Condor and can preserve the unity of the company with long- and short-haul [operations]," Spohr told aeroTelegraph. The offer could possibly expand to include all of the British tourism group’s airlines, he said. Lufthansa sold its remaining shares in Condor to Thomas Cook in 2010, though the two entities continued to cooperate and Condor remains a partner in Lufthansa group’s Miles & More frequent flier program.

Rumors that Lufthansa wanted to buy Condor surfaced in 2016 and gained new traction in February when Thomas Cook announced it was analyzing “all options” for the group’s airlines to enhance value to shareholders and intensify its strategic focus. With a joint fleet of 103 aircraft, of which a quarter serve long-haul destinations, Thomas Cook ranks as Europe’s eleventh-largest airline group, carrying 20.3 million passengers in the financial year ending September 30, 2018. The group controls airlines and AOCs in several EU countries, including Thomas Cook Airlines UK, Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia, Majorca-based Thomas Cook Airlines Balearics, and Condor. Condor deploys 17 long-haul aircraft and 41 short- and medium-haul aircraft from its bases in Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Munich, Hamburg, Hanover, Leipzig, and Stuttgart in the current summer schedule.