Marabu

Is Marabu safe?

Yes. Marabu has flown holidaymakers from German airports since April 2023 without a fatal accident or a written-off aircraft, and it flies only the Airbus A320neo, under EU safety rules. The catch is how little there is to judge: three and a half years with a fleet that has only now reached twelve jets, one of which struck its tail hard enough at Munich in 2024 to be out of service for four months. We score it 83, just below its sister airline Condor at 85.

Who flies your Marabu flight?

Most passengers never book Marabu directly. Condor sells its seats, the flight numbers start with DE6, and Condor's terms of carriage apply. The aircraft and crews, though, are Marabu's own, under an air operator certificate that Estonia's Transport Administration issued in April 2023. That is why the jets carry ES- registrations and why Marabu reports incidents to Tallinn rather than to Germany's Luftfahrt-Bundesamt.

In its first summer Marabu relied on Nordica, another Estonian company, to run three A320neos on its behalf while it built up its own operation. That start was rough for customers. With only two A320neos of its own in May 2023, Marabu also hired aircraft and crews from more than a dozen other airlines, and technical faults on those jets led to delays of 12 hours or more. None of it led to regulator action that we could find.

The 2024 Munich tailstrike

On 27 June 2024, flight DI6023 from Hurghada landed on runway 26L at Munich. The A320neo touched down hard, bounced, and came down again with the nose about 12 degrees up, enough for the tail to scrape the runway. Nobody was hurt. Germany's BFU classed it as an accident because the damage was substantial: the jet stayed at Munich for almost a month, was then flown unpressurised to Sofia for repair, and did not carry passengers again until 22 October 2024.

The BFU has published only its first details so far, not a final report with causes. Bounced landings that end in a tailstrikeTail strikeWhen the tail of an aircraft touches the runway during take-off or landing, usually because the nose was raised too far or too early.More in the glossary usually come down to how the crew handles the bounce, so the final report is worth reading when it appears.

Other incidents since 2023

• Malaga to Munich, July 2023. Shortly after take-off from Malaga, a warning lamp showed an engine fire. The crew considered turning back, the warning went out, and they flew on to Munich, partly because the aircraft had shown false warnings before. Marabu later said a spark plug had come loose and hot gas had escaped, damaging the engine without setting it on fire, and that it had reported the event to the Estonian authorities. We found no published outcome of that review.
• Paderborn, May 2025. The BEA's list of notified events names Marabu as the operator of an A320 that struck its tail during a go-around at Paderborn after a flight from Palma. The aircraft, 9H-EUT, belongs to Eurowings Europe Malta, Eurowings answered questions about the event as its own, and aeroTELEGRAPH reported the BEA entry as a mix-up, so we do not count it here.

Two events in about three years is not unusual for a small airline, but with a fleet this size each one weighs more than it would at a carrier flying hundreds of jets.

How old is Marabu's fleet?

The fleet is one type: the Airbus A320neo, with 180 seats, fly-by-wireFly-by-wireA flight control system in which the pilot's inputs go to computers, which then move the control surfaces. Many such systems also stop unsafe manoeuvres.More in the glossary controls and current avionics. The lessor CDB Aviation finished delivering four more in July 2026, which brought Marabu to twelve. Not all of them are new: the jet in the Munich tailstrikeTail strikeWhen the tail of an aircraft touches the runway during take-off or landing, usually because the nose was raised too far or too early.More in the glossary, ES-MBC, was built in 2016. Marabu does not publish an average age, so we cannot score the fleet as highly as one delivered new from the factory.

Where Marabu flies

Marabu's bases in 2026 are Hamburg, Leipzig and Nuremberg, with flights to holiday airports around the Mediterranean and to Hurghada in Egypt. These are mostly large, well-equipped holiday airports with modern air traffic control. The difficulties are seasonal: summer thunderstorms over the Mediterranean, gusty approaches to island airports, and crowded aprons in August.

If a flight sold by Condor is listed as "operated by Marabu", the record on this page applies, not Condor's. Check the "operated by" line in your booking. If a different airline name appears there, that airline is flying you, and its own record applies.

How we scored it

The fleet (88) is the strongest factor: one modern type, though not all new. The accident record (84) has no deaths or write-offsHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary, but three years and one damaging accident are too little for the top band. Oversight (82) is full EASA, held back because Marabu has no confirmed IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit. Serious incidents (74) cost the most, for the Munich tailstrikeTail strikeWhen the tail of an aircraft touches the runway during take-off or landing, usually because the nose was raised too far or too early.More in the glossary and the 2023 engine event. Environment scores 82. Overall 83.