The Cranky Flier » Airlines We Lost

Airlines We Lost in 2011

CF — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 11:45:31 +0000

It’s that time of the year once again where we review those airlines that had their wings clipped. Last year, I said it was a pretty good year in terms of the airlines we lost. If that’s true, then this was a rock star kind of year. There were very few airlines that went under at all – this took a lot of sleuthing to dig up anything remotely interesting. Next year, we’ll have some big names in Continental and AirTran, but this year, let’s enjoy the relative silence.

Mandala Airlines – January 13, 2011
Anytime an Indonesian airline fails, I figure nobody cares. It’s a fairly regular occurrence over there, chances are it wasn’t exactly a safe airline anyway. This one was different. When Mandala shut down in January, it said it vowed to return to the skies. How many times have we heard that? But this time, it’s true. See, Mandala is partially owned by Indigo. Indigo has a stake in a bunch of low cost airlines including Spirit and Tiger. Yes, Mandala may come out as Tiger Mandala so Tiger can get a foothold in Indonesia. So, Mandala is dead, technically. But it may rise from the grave again.

Wataniya Airways – March 16, 2011
Wataniya seemed promising in the way that anything in the Middle East seems promising. It was sort of a premium low cost model with business and premium economy seating throughout the Middle East from its base in Kuwait. Its base was something awesome in its own right – it flew out of a private terminal. While something this crazy could only work in the Middle East, even that didn’t work. The airline lost a bunch of money and eventually was shut down, a mere couple years after it first started flying.

Air Cuenca – June 21, 2011
This one could have been seen coming a mile away. Ecuador is a crowded place with a lot of airlines vying for domestic traffic. Air Cuenca was started to, um, do the same thing as everyone else. Based in Cuenca, the hope was that they could build some kind of profitable operation. That was just a silly thought. Its main routes from Cuenca to Guayaquil and Quito were already served by others. There just wasn’t a need for Air Cuenca, and it disappeared quickly. You know you’re insignificant when there isn’t even a Wikipedia page.

Icaro – ?, 2011
Air Cuenca wasn’t the only blood spilled in Ecuador this year as Icaro also went belly up. Well, at least, I think it’s gone. Icaro actually applied to shut down on June 20, but I haven’t seen any confirmation that it’s actually gone. I’m just going to assume that it sailed into the sunset by now. Icaro will actually be sorely missed. At least, horny young guys will miss Icaro a lot since it had lingerie fashion shows. Don’t believe me?

Wow. That’s, um, interesting. Adios, Icaro, I think. If you actually are shut down by now.

Air Southwest – September 30, 2011
Wait, the mighty Southwest has gone under? Yeah, not quite. Air Southwest was a little operator out of the UK with a funny story. It shut down because its primary airport went away. No kidding. Air Southwest started up to fill a void. When British Airways pulled out of Plymouth, Air Southwest stepped right in. Air Southwest tried to grow into a few different airports but nothing really caught on. In 2010, it was bought by Eastern Airways. This year, Plymouth’s City Airport was shut down, and the original plan was to keep flying other routes. Eventually, Eastern decided to just throw in the towel on Air Southwest. Eastern still operates, but Air Southwest is just a memory.

Avianova – October 9, 2011
Avianova was a disaster from the start. This was another Indigo investment that was hoping to be an ultra low cost carrier that could crack the difficult Russian market. That didn’t happen. It actually grew very quickly, becoming the largest airline behind Aeroflot at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo, but then it all fell apart. Typical Russian politics took over and sunk the airline. The major shareholder decided to kick all foreigners out, claiming that they refused to follow Russian law. Indigo fought back, and in the end, the airline went up in a ball of red tape. Nothing was resolved and it shut down. Pathetic.

Lufthansa Italia – October 29, 2011
This wasn’t so much an airline failure as it was a mercy killing. Back when Alitalia was in the throes of bankruptcy, Lufthansa saw an opening. It already had a strong presence in Northern Italy with Air Dolomiti service to nearby Munich, but it wanted more. Lufthansa Italia was an effort to start serving major business markets around Europe from Milan. The ultimate hope, I assume, was to end up taking a piece of the combined Alitalia/Air One and steal them away from SkyTeam for Star Alliance. It didn’t happen. Alitalia/Air One merged, but they stuck with SkyTeam. Lufthansa’s Air Dolomiti is still a solid operation but the Milan hub simply didn’t work. It was axed.

Astraeus – November 21, 2011
I don’t usually write about charter airlines that lease aircraft to other airlines, because you’ve probably never heard of them. But Astraeus was a little different because of its most famous pilot (and, toward the end, marketing director). You might recognize Bruce Dickinson as a lead singer for the metal band Iron Maiden, but he was also quite an accomplished pilot. He even piloted the band around on a reunion tour a couple years back. So it’s sad to see Bruce having to fall back on his other job, but well, things don’t always work out. As for Astraeus, since its main business was in flying airplanes for other airlines, you probably would have never heard of them were it not for Bruce.

Airlines We Lost in 2010

CF — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 11:45:47 +0000

The year is almost done, and you know what that means. It’s time to review the airlines we’ve lost in 2010. The good news? We had fewer airlines disappear this year than last and many of them were piddly little guys that I won’t even bother discussing here. (Strategic France, anyone?) But we did have some big names disappear as well as some quirky little guys. Let’s get going.

Blue Wings (again) – January 13, 2010
Wait, didn’t Blue Wings already shut down last year? Yep. It sure did, but it was able to rise from the grave only to be pushed right back in again soon after its resurrection. The airline had plenty of money woes throughout its short life in Germany and now it appears to be gone for good. (Then again I thought that was the case last year as well.) Now we can finally avoid all those problems of passengers mistaking Blue Wings for Blue Wing Airlines in Suriname. Man, that was always such a tough one to deal with.

Taban Air – January 24, 2010
Anyone heard of Taban Air? Probably not since it was in Iran and that’s literally an aviation graveyard since the airlines can’t get new airplanes from the west (or parts for that matter). Taban got off the ground in 2006 and had a motley fleet of 1 Russian-built Tupolev along with a couple of leased birds of other types. Things were going swimmingly until flight 6437 had a problem. The plane was holding over Mashhad, waiting for the weather to clear up, when a passenger got sick. Instead of waiting for the weather to clear or diverting, the crew decided to just land the thing anyway. Not smart. The plane cracked up but everyone lived. Good for the people, bad for the airline. It’s certificate was revoked.

Northwest – January 31, 2010
Some argued that Northwest truly went away last year, but I didn’t see the real end until this January when the website was shut down and the NW code disappeared. While there is still work to do and I’m sure there are some little props flying around with the old Northwest colors, that truly was the end of an airline with a long and storied history. Now it exists in a little corner of the Delta Heritage Museum and that’s about it. I never had much love for Northwest myself but any airline that survived that long certainly deserves some recognition.

Tafa Air – February 2010
Raise your hand if you have the worst idea for a low cost carrier. Now put it down, because Tafa Air has to take the cake. The idea was to bring Albanians living outside of the country back and forth. Germany was the primary market, but let’s be honest, there just aren’t that many Albanians in the world. The airline started just before Christmas 2009 so it probably had a couple of good weeks. But then it realized that Christmas travel can’t sustain you all year. The airline lost its aircraft lease in February and tried to come back, but it never did. Tafa was doomed from the start.

Viva Macau – March 26, 2010
You have to love an airline that shuts down in March but still has a live website by the end of the year. Viva Macau was an, um, interesting airline. Macau was the Portuguese equivalent of Hong Kong that really has been best known for its gambling. Air Macau has a stranglehold on the city but Viva Macau fought hard to start up and bring low cost flights throughout Asia and Australia. That was its first mistake. There was an agreement that allowed Air Macau to veto any routes that Viva Macau wanted to fly, so the airline never could do what it wanted entirely. In the end, the government got involved, canceled the agreement between Air Macau and Viva Macau, and then said Viva Macau was unfit to fly so it revoked its certificate. Great place to operate an airline, it would seem.

Skyservice – March 31, 2010
Apparently if you aren’t Air Canada or WestJet, you’re doomed to failure. (And don’t start on Porter – have you seen their numbers?) Skyservice was a charter operator in Canada, as so many others have done, and it failed, like so many others. In that truly kind Canadian fashion, it didn’t shut down until after the busy Spring Break season and it was a relatively orderly demise. Gotta love those Canucks. The death of Skyservice has opened the door for primarily regional operator Jazz to step in. It is now flying big jets on behalf of Thomas Cook. Canadians need to get to the sun somehow.

Sama Airlines – August 24, 2010
Sama was an airline with a plan . . . a plan that changed weekly, it seemed. The airline was one of the first of two low cost carriers to start up in Saudi Arabia. It initially focused on domestic flying, but then it shifted to an international focus. I use the word “focus” loosely because it went in and out of markets on a fairly regular basis. In the end, it couldn’t find any strategy that actually resulted in a profit, so it shut down. Not exactly the easiest place to run a low cost carrier, to be fair, but now there’s only one. Nasair will have to carry the torch for now.

Mexicana – August 28, 2010
Ah, Mexicana. This is another airline that we might see on the list again next year if it gets re-started as supposedly planned. Mexicana is probably the highest profile failure this year and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer airline. Briefly known as the Worst Airline Ever, Mexicana had so many problems that it was better off just going away. There have been attempts to resurrect the airline from the dead, but so far they’ve failed. Meanwhile, airlines like Aeromexico and Volaris have filled in the gaps along with US carriers. Pretty soon, nobody will miss this airline at all.

Midwest Airlines – October 1, 2010
As with Northwest, there are a lot of dates you could use to show the death of Midwest. Sure, it could have been the day former CEO Tim Hoeksema put the airline on a path to the end several years ago. Or it could have been when Midwest stopped flying its own airplanes and instead outsourced it all. But on October 1, the YX code went away as did the Midwest website. Despite the stray airplane painted in Midwest colors, it’s hard to argue that Midwest still exists in any form other than the cookie that Frontier hands out. After a long illness, Midwest is dead.

Fred Kahn – December 27, 2010
I’m throwing you a curveball with this. No, Fred Kahn wasn’t an airline, but he was the father of deregulation in this industry. And when he died on Monday, I thought it was only appropriate to include him in this list. After all, the deregulation of the airline industry, while unequivocally the right thing to do, did result in several storied airlines joining the graveyard over the years. Many in the industry say deregulation was a bad thing, and that’s because it probably was for them. But deregulation lowered fares and enabled millions of people to fly and that’s why it was such a good thing. It may not have happened without Fred, so he definitely deserves a salute.

That’s it for this year. I left off some smaller guys including charter and cargo airlines, as usual. Feel free to chime in with the ones you miss most in the comments section.

Airlines We Lost in 2009

CF — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 06:44:17 +0000

Long time readers of the blog know that I have a little tradition here as each year comes to a close. I like to honor (or roast) those airlines that were flying at the beginning of the year but didn’t make it until the end. This year’s list is shorter and less prolific than last year, but there are still some worthy mentions in here. (See past lists.) Please keep in mind that this isn’t a comprehensive worldwide list but rather a highlight (or lowlight) reel.

Zambian Airways – January 12, 2009
Ah little Zambian Airways. On a continent where airlines come and go every day, Zambian survived for over 60 years, and that’s no small feat. Granted, it was only in the last 10 years that the airline tried to survive without government help. You might remember these guys flying DC-10s to New York . . . oh wait, that wasn’t them. That was actually Zambia Airways, a completely different airline. These guys have never flown anything larger than a 737, as best I can tell and most of their fleet was made up of props. I doubt they’ll really be missed that much.

flyLAL – January 17, 2009
With a name like flyLAL, you’d think this airline had started within the last couple years, but nay, it’s been around longer than Zambian. Of course, back then it was simply the Lithuanian-based aircraft of Aeroflot. After Lithuania gained independence, the government built this airline from the remains of Aeroflot in the country. It never really made money, and in 2005 the airline was privatized. Without government backing, this thing was doomed. I’m amazed it took as long as it did for them to fold considering all the competition in the area.

East Star Airlines – March 15, 2009
You would think that in a country with over 1 billion people and a very small number of airplanes, a startup would do ok. Bzzt. Not in this case. East Star came on the scene in 2006 with the hope that private airlines might have a bright future. It crumbled quickly. The airline was heavily in debt and it was ready to collapse. The airline’s chief, Lan Shili (not to be confused with Lan Chile) tried to flee the country. That’s, um, not a good sign. They did catch him, however, and I imagine he’ll be tried if he doesn’t end up “committing suicide” first.

Blue Wings – March 31, 2009
There’s really nothing like a Russian oligarch to turn an airline into a spectacular failure. In this case, Alexander Lebedev, a man who also owns 29% of Aeroflot, saw his dream crash into the ground when Blue Wings was shut down. Blue Wings was a German airline that flew people to Turkey and Russia. Earlier in 2009, the airline was put on a temporary license because it was thought to be broke. Now Lebedev says it isn’t broke, but the airline remains shut down by the government. Word on the street is that Lebedev wants to merge it with his other low cost carrier, Red Wings, and move it to Detroit.
UPDATE: BlueWings lives again! Thomas from CH-Aviation tells me they’re back.

Dirgantara Air Service – April 11, 2009
Let’s face it. Nobody cares about little Dirgantara . . . except for former employees of America West. See, Dirgantara may have been a backwater airline deemed unsafe by even the Indonesian government, but it also held the airline code AW. Every America West employee wondered at some point why we didn’t have the AW code. And when we looked it up, we found Dirgantara Air Service of Indonesia. Incredibly, this airline outlasted America West by a couple of years, but now they’re both gone. Maybe Air Wisconsin is interested . . .

Air Senegal International- April 24, 2009
How about a nice political mess? We certainly have that here with Air Senegal. Royal Air Maroc owned 51% of Air Senegal with the Senegalese owning the rest. Wanna guess what happened? Royal Air Maroc said it wanted to pull out of the airline, probably because it was a money-losing mess. Senegal said they would take it over, but then the courts said Royal Air Maroc couldn’t ditch the airline. Whatever. Now it’s dead. I’m sure the Senegalese will simply create a new carrier to be the shining light of the country. Actually, they already have. Senegal Airlines starts next year.

Air Fiji – May 1, 2009
This is one I can’t keep straight. So Air Fiji used to be called Air Pacific, but today’s Air Pacific used to be called Fiji Airways. Meanwhile, Air Pacific continues to fly as the international carrier of Fiji (with some domestic services as well) while tiny Air Fiji folded. The airline hasn’t been in good shape for a long time. It even suspended operations back in 2008 only to bounce back for one last run around the islands. Now it’s fleet is permanently grounded, but from what I can tell, there’s plenty of service in Fiji from other carriers. Maybe that’s why they’re gone.

Myair – July 21, 2009
You know I was hoping that our Italian entry into the list this year would be Alitalia, but sadly we’ll have to settle for Myair as Alitalia continues to survive. These guys were a mess, but in typical Italian fashion, they tried to go out with a flourish. They were in debt and completely broke, so what did they do? Apparently, when they couldn’t afford their insurance premiums, they opted to simply try to write checks that they couldn’t cover but they got caught. I’m surprised the workers didn’t go on strike just because it’s what they do. Gotta love the Italians.

SkyEurope – August 31, 2009
These are the guys who just wouldn’t die. SkyEurope was one of the low fare pioneers of Eastern Europe that started up around the same time as Wizz Air, but they never really made any money at all. While they remained based in Bratislava (Slovakia), they kept bouncing around looking for profitable places to stick airplanes. They never quite figured it out. It’s too bad, because I hear they did a nice job on`board. There were daily rumors about them going bust, but they managed to hold on longer than most would have expected.

KD Avia – September 7, 2009

On paper, this sounds like a good idea. KD Avia was based in Kaliningrad. Yes, that’s the part of Russia that doesn’t actually touch the rest of Russia. It’s wedged between Lithuania and Poland as one of Russia’s few year-round ports. The airline was around for many years beginning after World War II, but it only recently detailed its new plan to take advantage of its location to bridge the east and the west in a hub operation. That’s apparently not a very good plan. Just ask Austrian. Then again, KD Avia didn’t really get much of a chance to prove it one way or the other.

Pace Airlines – September 12, 2009
Who knows the name Pace? That’s what I figured. Now, who remembers Hooters Air? Well those planes were actually Pace airplanes. Pace was founded by former Piedmont people.as a charter operator, but it was its most recent leader who made a name for himself as being, um, pretty damn sketchy. Apparently a lot of employees are owed money, but my guess is they’ll never get it. The CEO was recently arrested for not paying healthcare premiums and he could get up to 10 years in prison. This is a guy who only bought the airline a few months earlier promising to save the airline. Or not.

Flyglobespan – December 16, 2009
Americans may only know flyglobespan as that goofy airline that flew from random US cities to random UK cities, but . . . well actually, that was a big piece of what they did in the past. But at its heart, flyglobespan was the largest Scottish airline, taking Scots and their kilts to far flung destinations. Now they are no more. I really only heard awful things about this airline. They canceled flights, kept people delayed for days, and simply made life miserable for a lot of travelers. Though Scots may miss having a large international airline, they probably won’t miss this being it.

Air Comet – December 21, 2009
Last but certainly not least, we have what is becoming a pre-holiday tradition in the very worst way. Not too long after Air Madrid pulled these same shenanigans before Christmas a couple years ago, Air Comet did the exact same thing. Actually they were shut down by the authorities. It was another airline that exploded in size taking Spaniards to warmer weather, and now it’s gone thanks to, well, being broke. I would hate to be a Spaniard – booking travel for the holidays is a hazardous experience. Maybe you guys should just drive or take boats from now on.

That’s this year’s list. If I missed anything you think is important, feel free to drop it in the comments section. Happy New Year to all, and I’ll be back with you again on Monday.

Airlines We Lost in 2008

CF — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:25:30 +0000

It’s time once again for the third annual edition of “Airlines We Lost.” This was a pretty active year, as you can probably imagine. Sadly, my wish last year for Alitalia to be on this year’s list has not come true. That airline soliders on while others have not been so lucky to have a government behind them to prop them up. As I said, last year, let us hope that all the former employees of these airlines find new jobs with ease. I’m probably taking Friday off, so I’ll be back again Monday. Happy New Year!

AlpiEagles – January 3, 2008

We were barely into 2008 when AlpiEagles became the first airline of the year to shut down. To be honest, I don’t know much about these guys, but if I couldn’t include Alitalia, I had to at least find one Italian airline. A Google search found some references that make me think it wasn’t much of a surprise that these guys went under. In fact, I’m somewhat amazed they lasted as long as they did.

Boston-Maine (Pan Am) – February 29, 2008

It’s not often that I’m happy to see an airline go out of business, but this is most certainly one of them. When the Pan Am name and colors were slapped on this two-bit outfit flying old 727s into backwater airports, it was an embarrassment. To make things even worse, this airline was effectively a union-buster that was given the Pan Am name and routes when the previous version of Pan Am was shut down by the parent company. Earlier this year, the DOT put out a scathing report that the airline was financially unfit, lacked proper management oversight, and didn’t follow rules.

Big Sky – March 8, 2008

Big Sky was a sad loss, at least for those who relied on the airline to get around the upper Midwest for years. Big Sky was acquired by Mesaba’s parent, but when Mesaba was sold to Northwest, the parent company wanted out of the airline business. The 19-seaters weren’t making much money, so it was time to call it quits. I remember when I was at America West and we signed a codeshare with Big Sky. There were very few airports they served that I’d even heard of before, but they were the lifeline for the people who lived in those places.

Adam Air – March 18, 2008

If anyone is actually surprised by this one, you must not pay much attention to aviation accidents. Adam Air came out of Indonesia and did a good job of convincing people not to fly it. There were a number of accidents and incidents over its relatively short life span, and ultimately the Indonesian government mercifully shut them down. We should all be able to sleep easier at night knowing that this airline is gone from the scene.

Aloha Airlines – March 31, 2008

For me, this is the saddest failure of the year. If this were the Academy Awards when they show the people who died in the last year, Aloha would undoubtedly get the loudest applause. The oldest airline to fail last year, Aloha succumbed to a brutal competitive environment thanks to the entry of go! into the Interisland Hawaiian market. Lawsuits have dragged on, but it appears they have recently been settled with the understanding that go!, the very airline that killed Aloha, will rebrand as Aloha. This was so unpalatable that even the judge put a temporary stop to it.

ATA – April 3, 2008

Though ATA was an airline that many people hated, I actually never had a bad experience flying them. In fact, I always had good experiences. They reached their zenith in the early 2000s as they grew their Chicago and Indianapolis hubs under now-United drone John Tague but collapsed mightily soon after. Southwest picked up the remains, and the airline limped along for awhile, but ultimately, the owners bought a couple other airlines and shut down the original. A sad end for an airline with a long history.

Skybus – April 4, 2008

Ah yes, remember Skybus? It seems like it was only around for a few minutes, so you may have forgotten them by now. The idea was to offer ultra low fare flights originally only from its Columbus hub. Columbus? Yeah. That might go a long way to explain why it didn’t work. But this airline called it quits before it actually had to. In fact, there was money left in the bank, but the management decided it just wasn’t going to work in the end. By this time next year, we’ll probably have forgotten completely that they ever existed.

Skyway – April 5, 2008

Poor little Skyway, better known as Midwest Connect, died because of Midwest’s insistence on not actually flying any airplanes itself. Skyway was Midwest’s wholly-owned regional subsidiary, but Midwest decided it would rather have SkyWest operate the routes instead. So while Skyway lives on as a ground operations company, it no longer has any planes. Then again, Midwest doesn’t have many of its own planes left either.

Oasis HongKong – April 9, 2008

Like Skybus, Oasis HongKong had a meteoric rise only to come crashing down hard. The airline was running long haul, low fare flights between Hong Kong and both London and Vancouver. Apparently, it’s fares were too low, because one day it just disappeared. Many have argued that the long haul, low fare model doesn’t work, though Air Asia X is currently going to do its best to prove that hypothesis wrong. (Nonexistent labor costs help, by the way.)

Eos Airlines – April 26, 2008

There’s a special place for Eos in my eyes, because I interned with the airline during business school, long before it got started. In fact, it was just me and David Spurlock in a Palo Alto office working on getting funding for the airline back in 2003. The experience was great, but high fuel prices, a very small niche market, and, according to others, weak management, did the airline in. With fuel at today’s prices, it undoubtedly could have held on longer, but it’s not clear that it would have survived.

Nationwide Airlines – April 29, 2008

I’m sure there were a few thousand airlines in Africa that failed this year, but none had a higher profile than Nationwide. This airline, based in South Africa, grew to have a fairly sizable operation that even served London. In 2007, Nationwide was shut down for regulatory non-compliance, but it briefly came back. Of course, a temporary shut down like that is just as bad as being shut down for good, so it did just that and decided to call it quits.

Far Eastern Air Transport – May 12, 2008

I don’t know really know a ton about Far Eastern Air Transport except that their tails had FAT spelled out in big block letters. That’s good comedy. I was surprised to find that this airline was actually around for fifty years, primarily as a very strong domestic carrier in Taiwan. Increased competition (in the air and on the rails) put this airline into financial trouble, and it finally called it quits after struggling to the right the ship for awhile.

Silverjet – May 30, 2008

Like Eos, Silverjet tried to do the all-premium airline model and failed miserably. I’m told Silverjet had a very nice facility at London’s Luton airport, but that wasn’t enough to make it successful. Locating the airline at Luton probably didn’t help much either. Toward the end, there was all kinds of drama. It was said that a Middle Eastern firm would pump money into the airline and refocus it, but that never came through and the airline ran out of luck . . . and money.

Champion – May 31, 2008

Though Champion flew charters with its 727 fleet toward the end, its 2 letter code “MG” alludes to its roots as MGM Grand Air. MGM was a luxurious airline flying between LA and New York, but Champion did a lot of sports charters and some leisure work as well. In the end, the aging fleet wasn’t competitive in the charter market and the airline simply opted to shut down and go quietly into the night. Fortunately, it didn’t go away until after delaying the Spurs to a playoff game against the Lakers. Thanks, guys.

Air Midwest – June 30, 2008

Little Air Midwest was another casualty in the 19 seat aircraft market that really took a hit this year. This airline had been owned by Mesa for several years, and ultimately Mesa opted to completely shut down its 19 seat operation. I had the chance to fly Air Midwest on one of its little Beech 1900s from Yuma to Phoenix, and I certainly had no complaints. Then again, the weather was good that day. Were it not, I might have had a different opinion of the little airline.

ExpressJet (branded service) – September 1, 2008

Let’s get one thing clear. ExpressJet still exists and is still flying around as Continental Express and as a charter airline. The piece that died was the “branded” ExpressJet operation that was set up to fly point-to-point between smaller cities; sort of a Southwest Express in my mind. If Aloha’s failure tugged at the heartstrings, this one bothers the brain. This model still looks interesting to me, especially with lower fuel prices and a different aircraft type. I just think ExpressJet was ahead of its time on this one.

Zoom – August 28, 2008

This quirky airline had a very strange setup. The original airline was Canadian and began flying Transatlantic from Canada. Then they wanted to fly back across the Atlantic to the US from the UK so they set up a UK subsidiary to do the work. Flights went from London to places like San Diego, where no other nonstop service existed. The idea may have made sense in someone’s head, but it didn’t work at all. They collapsed under their own weight.

XL – September 12, 2008

You knew XL was set on being a low cost carrier when it decided that letters were too expensive and shortened its name from Excel. The British low cost charter operation focused on shuttling pasty white Brits to sunspots, but apparently it wasn’t concerned about getting them back when it stranded fifty thousand travelers after its shutdown. Another 200,000 had future bookings so this was likely a more expensive winter than many had planned.

AeroCalifornia – October 4, 2008

Wait, didn’t these guys already shut down? You know it, but somehow the Mexican airline didn’t make my 2006 list. AeroCalifornia operated aircraft so old they were actually flight tested by Charles Lindbergh (um, maybe not), but they were considered airworthy enough to fly to the US until 2006 when it first shut down. The airline made a brief comeback with only domestic Mexican operations, but that again ended abruptly when they ran out of money.

Sterling – October 29, 2008

Sterling quickly rose to be a massive low fare airline in Scandinavia and Europe in general, especially after acquiring Maersk. I flew Maersk once and loved the product, but Sterling had plenty of ownership shifts and never fully found its groove. It didn’t help that its most recent owners were Icelandic, not exactly a good place to be from a financial perspective these days. Cimber Air says it’s going to resurrect the airline, but, well, we’ll see about that.

European – November 30, 2008

Oh man, am I finally done? European wouldn’t get a mention here except for two things. First, it was one of the last operators (if not the last) of the 737-200 in Europe. And second, it operated for Palmair, an airline I really enjoyed learning about this year. Palmair was surprised by the failure of European, but it has found an aircraft from Jet2 to pick up the slack for now. Meanwhile, European will probably disappear quietly without any fanfare at all.

[Airlines We Lost in 2007]
[Airlines We Lost in 2006]

Airlines We Lost in 2007

CF — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 16:27:28 +0000

As we approach the end of 2007, it’s time to follow up the tradition I started last year with a tribute to those airlines that won’t make it until 2008. Ok, maybe two years doesn’t make a tradition, but I have to start somewhere.

Of course, this doesn’t include every single airline worldwide that went out of business this year. I mean, there would probably be a million of them in Nigeria alone. So, I’ve culled the list down to some of the most notable for one reason or another. If you think I’ve left one out that should be recognized, leave a comment below.

So, here they are in the order which they shut down this year. May their employees all find new jobs with ease.

Hapag-Lloyd – January 2007

Back in 1972, the recently created shipping conglomerate Hapag-Lloyd decided it was time to start an airline to serve its own purposes. I can see the thinking now . . . “we have a bunch of cruise ships and need to get people to them. I know, let’s start an airline!” That strategy has rarely worked in the past, but over the years, Hapag-Lloyd grew to operate more than 30 aircraft in the charter market until they were swallowed up by the giant TUI. This year, the airline’s name disappeared as TUI began operating all flights under the incredibly un-catchy name TUIfly. While the name may be lame, you’ve undoubtedly seen them buzzing around European airports with their frightening powder blue livery.

Atlantic Express – January 15, 2007

Poor Atlantic Express. Their mission was very simple . . . fly people from the tiny island of Jersey (off the coast of France) back to London. Their airport of choice? Stansted. Unfortunately for them, you can fly FlyBE to Gatwick, British Midland to Heathrow, VLM to City, and even ThomsonFly to Stansted itself. Needless to say, an airline solely focusing on this route isn’t going to last very long. And they didn’t. Oh sure, there are rumors that they’re going to be revived, but I wouldn’t put much stock in those.

Slovak Airlines – February 2007

The tale of Slovak Airlines is a bitter one. Back in the mid-1990s, newly independent Slovakia saw the Czechs take the airline they used to share. (Well, they did fly mainly out of Prague.) So what did they do? They got some private investors to start up an airline of their own. As you might have expected, the airline did terribly and in 2005 they turned to Austrian Airlines (not exactly a shining star of profitability itself) to take a controlling stake. Two years later, Austrian was so frustrated with the government’s unwillingness to hold up its end of the bargain and fork over some cash, that they pulled the planes out from under Slovak Airlines and the airline disappeared like that. So there.

FlyMe – March 2, 2007

I’m not sure that there was really anything remarkable about FlyMe. They were just another airline that got caught up in the low cost carrier frenzy of early 2000s Europe. For some reason, several airlines thought that these generic and annoying names stating that yes, they actually do “fly” would bring them riches. Please don’t confuse them with FlyBE, FlyNordic, TUIfly, Flyglobespan, or Thomsonfly. FlyMe was based in Sweden and brought people from the frozen north down to warmer spots in Europe. Many other airlines had this idea as well (go figure), so the airline never made it very far.

RegionsAir – March 8, 2007

Though we didn’t see much activity in the first couple of months of 2007 in the US, it picked up in March with the shutdown of RegionsAir. Who? Well, RegionsAir was one of those EAS airlines. They took government money from the Essential Air Service program to fly people to little towns that had very little demand. (The awful EAS program warrants a big long post of its own sometime.) Most recently it was flying as American Connection and Continental Connection from the hubs to places like Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. (Motto: Our name is more entertaining than our town.) The EAS world is a hard one to make work these days, and that’s why you’ll see airlines like Big Sky on this list next year. But, RegionsAir didn’t shut down for financial reasons. Nope, they were forcibly shut down by the FAA for training problems. Yikes. They keep saying they’re under new management and they’re going to come back bigger and better than ever. Uh huh. That hasn’t happened, and I wouldn’t put any bets on it.

SN Brussels and Virgin Express – March 25, 2007

We’ve got a two-fer here, but it’s not a sad ending this time around. SN Brussels and Virgin Express merged to form Brussels Airlines, a new carrier that hopefully will not overserve Belgium as has been tradition for years and years. You may be surprised by the early start date of SN Brussels. Many people think it was created to replace Sabena after it shutdown in 2001. But no, it actually was Delta Air Transport beforehand. When Sabena shutdown, the Belgians transformed DAT into SN Brussels and anointed it as the flag carrier. The death of this airline marks the end of the stylized “S” logo that Sabena used to use as well.

Virgin Express, on the other hand, is a reminder that not everything Richard Branson touches turns to gold. It was never a very successful operation despite its early entrance into the European low cost carrier market. It really ended up being more of a pest to Sabena and SN Brussels than a real threat for world domination. This is probably one of the brighter spots on the list this year, because a merger should help the fortunes of both parties.

Lloyd Aereo Boliviano (LAB) – April 1, 2007

The story of LAB is a long and proud one. Um, well, until the end. LAB was one of the oldest airlines operating in the world with roots going back to 1925. The only airline predating them in South America was Avianca. Incredibly, the airline survived throughout the years, and even thrived at some points. Unfortunately, the death spiral began in the 1990s and there was very little chance it would recover. Brazilian-disaster VASP took a stake for awhile and proved that it could hardly run itself, let alone a successful partnership. LAB teetered back and forth until this year when the government finally euthanized the airline. There continues to be talk of resurrecting the airline once again, but I wouldn’t expect to see that succeed any time soon.

Harmony Airways – April 9, 2007

Ah, Harmony. These guys had one of the more colorful histories. Well, it wasn’t the airline itself – it was the CEO. Dr David Ho founded the airline as his personal play toy. He basically decided that he didn’t like the way airlines treated him, so he thought it would be good to start his own. The airline went in and out of routes on a whim, depending how Dr Ho felt that day. But that wasn’t a crime. His only crime was, well, being caught with hookers and blow. I’m not kidding. Just a month or so before the airline shut down, Dr Ho was found driving high on coke with a couple of hookers in his car. Now there’s a role model for you. Shortly after, the airline folded. Related? Probably not directly, but well, you know.

Peace Air – May 18, 2007

I’ll bet you’ve never heard of Peace Air. I know I had never heard of them before I started looking into this post. But Peace was a long-time airline based in Peace River, Alberta that folded under financial pressure this year. Some say it was just the tough competition from Air Canada and WestJet while others say it was the inability to fly to Edmonton’s City Centre airport for various reasons. Either way, things weren’t adding up and the airline had to shut down. It’s always sad to see these little guys give up the fight.

O’Connor Airlines – December 14, 2007

Our entry from down under this year is O’Connor Airlines. They just shut down within the last couple of weeks. O’Connor had a laundry list of problems highlighted in their press release announcing their closing. “Ongoing trading losses, declining customer support, flight crew shortages and significant aircraft maintenance issues also contributed to the decision to immediately cease operations.” Yeah, I’d say that the odds were stacked against them here. O’Connor was based in Mount Gambier but the only city they flew in the end that non-Aussies would recognize is Adelaide. I’d say this one appears to have been coming for a long time.

MAXjet – December 24, 2007

And now, for the one for which you’ve all been waiting. After a couple of weeks of speculation following a suspension of trading of shares, MAXjet shut its doors on Christmas Eve, making Santa find an alternate route for delivering presents at an affordable price in a seat in which he could fit. What happened? A lot. There’s no question that high fuel prices were problematic, especially on gas guzzling routes to LAX and Vegas. We know Washington/Dulles never worked for them despite multiple attempts. And New York? Well, there was crushing competition there.

I continue to believe that there’s something to this model, but it may just not be the right time. With fuel prices where they are, there just isn’t much hope. You’ll hear Eos and Silverjet crowing about how great they’re doing, but that’s just not possible. I can’t imagine they aren’t bleeding. It’s just very difficult to generate the revenue necessary to offset those costs these days when you have so few seats. It wouldn’t surprise me to see some more casualties in this market in the next year, I’m sad to say.

That’s it for this year’s addition. Let’s hope that we see Alitalia on this list next year. (What, you thought I could get through this without a snarky Alitalia comment?)

I don’t know if I’ll post again this year, so if not, I hope you enjoy the long weekend. I hope you’ve enjoyed my crankiness this year. I look forward to more crankiness next year.

Airlines We Lost in 2006

CF — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 18:28:00 +0000

As in most years, there were a whole slew of airlines that went under in 2006. There were large ones and small ones, old ones and new ones. Some of them were well known while others were gone before you even knew they existed. While many if not all of these deserved to go under, they at least deserve a proper burial. So, let’s remember the airlines that went away and the employees who lost their jobs in 2006.

BWIA has the most history of any airline that went out of business this year. Flying in the Caribbean for more than 60 years, many thought that the airline would never go away. This year it was announced that the airline would fold on December 31 only to be replaced by the new Caribbean Airlines. BWIA flew within the Americas and to Europe and had approximately 1,700 employees.

Air Gabon, a small regional player initially, took on its current name in 1977 after Gabon backed out of the Air Afrique consortium. The airline flew primarily within Africa and to Europe with a variety of aircraft over the years. The government shut down Air Gabon in 2006 in order to replace it with a new privately held airline.

Independence Air proved to be one of the most spectacular airline collapses in history. It took only 18 months to go from a very profitable regional airline to completely insolvent as an independent airline. Management thought that going independent would work despite warnings from just about everyone to the contrary. At its height, the airline had 5,000 employees.

Air Wales was founded to fly regional routes out of Wales, primarily from Cardiff. There were 120 employees at the airline which operated throughout the British Isles and to Paris and Brussels. After several attempts to save the airline, hope was finally lost and the airline shut down for good.

Australian was effectively restructured out of existence by its parent company, Qantas. Australian was born as Qantas’ long haul low cost carrier flying within the Australia/Pacific region. In 2006, Qantas decided to shut down the Australian brand and instead expand its short haul low cost carrier Jetstar into the long haul market.

QuikAir was a small commuter airline flying in the great white north of Canada. The airline flew up to six BAe Jetstream turboprops from its home base in Calgary. The airline found its niche flying between Calgary and Edmonton’s City Centre airport, but once Edmonton forced them to move to the international airport, the airline started its downhill slide.

CanJet didn’t technically go out of business, but they ceased scheduled operations in 2006 only to focus on the charter side. The airline focused on low fare flights in Atlantic Canada, especially from its Halifax base. After a short stint into the West, the airline began to retrench and decided to completely stop scheduled operations in September.

Who could forget Hooters Air? The airline brought horny men from small cities around the country to golf in places like Myrtle Beach and Las Vegas. The airline went in and out of markets all the time, desperately trying to find its niche. The airline is survived by its parent, Pace Airlines, which continues to operate charter services.

Song is the most colorful of the airlines to disappear this year. Song was the airline-within-an-airline concept Delta created that was bound to fail from the beginning. With hand-picked crews, the airline was known for great service and excellent amenities, including live television. Song was folded into Delta but many of the amenities pioneered in Song live on with the parent today.

Styrian Spirit was based in Graz, Austria and also flew as Slovenian Spirit from nearby Maribor, Slovenia. The airline flew regional jets throughout Europe, but Styrian Spirit ran out of money and was forced to shut down in late-March of 2006.

Air Madrid was like a match. It sparked quickly, grew fast, and then went out in the blink of an eye. The airline flew around the world from Spain, bringing its brand of non-existent customer service and massive delays to people worldwide. The airline mercifully shut down before the government was to shut them down for unsafe practices. Over 1,000 people lost their jobs.

Centavia didn’t last very long. The airline was a low cost carrier based in Serbia. It was to fly to surrounding countries, but it was denied rights in all of them. Consequently, the airline had no routes and two planes. That wasn’t the right combination for success (duh), and the airline disappeared in 2006.

FaroeJet was based in the Faroe Islands and flew a single aircraft between the Faroes and Copenhagen, Denmark. I’d imagine there weren’t many people who saw a need for two airlines based in the Faroes, and sure enough, FaroeJet failed while the older Atlantic Airways continues to fly.

OzJet was the creation of auto racing owner Paul Stoddart. The airline flew all business class flights between Sydney and Melbourne in Australia, not the best plan for a flight of barely more than one hour in duration. After barely more than 2 months of bleeding money, the airline was shut down and people promptly forgot the airline even existed.

Air Turquoise was founded as an attempt to fly turboprops around smaller airports in France and to London. The airline first flew out of Reims but moved to Vatry soon after launch. It never caught on, and Air Turquoise stopped flying in July.