Spanair Collapses...

[Jayden Laing]

Another airline has gone down the drain with Spanair being the carrier this time.

From the Daily Telegraph:

PASSENGERS were stranded at Spanish airports today after airline Spanair abruptly went bust, cancelling all its flights at short notice.
"Faced with the lack of financial visibility for the coming months, the company has decided to cease its operations as a measure of caution and safety," Spanair said in a statement overnight.
Its last scheduled flight landed on Friday night, leaving rivals such as Iberia, Vueling and Easyjet to share out the passengers left stranded.
Spanish media said at least 22,000 passengers were affected over the weekend but Spanair spokespeople were not immediately available to confirm this.
A queue of 200 surprised passengers formed at Spanair counters at Barcelona airport last night shortly after the anouncement.
Airports authority AENA said this morning everything was normal at Madrid's Barajas airport and Barcelona's El Prat, where special lounges had been allocated for Spanair customers.

"Passengers are turning up at these zones and the other companies are putting them on flights," an AENA spokeswoman said.

She said 55 Spanair flights were scrapped at Madrid and 54 at Barcelona today alone, with a handful of flights cancelled at Palma de Mallorca and Gran Canaria.
The company said in its statement: "The Spanair management regrets this and apologises to all those people who are affected by this situation."
Spanair, founded in 1986, had tried to survive by a tie-up with Qatar Airways which fell through.
The Catalania regional authorities, which owns part of the company, said it was unable to increase its stake due to crisis budget cuts and EU limits.
In 2008 one of Spanair's jets crashed on take-off at Madrid airport with the deaths of 154 people.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/new...-1226256227345

[Andrew Johnson]

there will probably be plenty of European carriers go belly up this year.

Did the low costs kill Spanair or the crash or both ? (+ of course European economies)

Not sure how big the Spanair fleet was, but must have been significant.

[Grahame Hutchison]

Looks like Malev is also in trouble ...

From FlightGlobal

Troubled Hungarian flag carrier Malev is drawing up an immediate liquidity plan after announcing that the financing of its activities has become "unviable".

In a statement on its website, Malev said: "In the interest of ensuring continuous operations, [Malev chairman] Janos Berenyi requested Malev management to draw up - by the end of the week - a liquidity plan for the immediate future."

Malev said it has approached its owner, the Hungarian government, with a request "to do everything possible to resolve the situation".
However, it warned that due to the European Commission's recent ruling that the airline must repay a significant amount of state aid granted to it between 2007 and 2010, "the room for manoeuvre of the government is extremely limited".

Malev at Zurich in Jun 2007 http://www.16right.com/cpg143/displa...album=12&pos=5
Malev at Zurich in Sep 2006 http://www.16right.com/cpg143/displa...album=8&pos=40

[Andrew Johnson]

who'll be next ?

The idea that some airlines are too big to collapse is no longer the case.