And another one bites the dust…
For a long time it looked like airlines in Europe were invincible, with barely any airlines going out of business. Now we’ve seen a series of airlines in Europe face financial hardships over the past year plus, which was really started by airberlin ceasing operations, though has really gotten worse over the past several months.
Germania is the latest airline to go out of business, as they ceased operations overnight. Here’s what Germania’s CEO had to say about the airline going out of business:
“Unfortunately, we were ultimately unable to bring our financing efforts to cover a short-term liquidity need to a positive conclusion. We very much regret that consequently, our only option was to file for insolvency. It is of course the impact that this step will have on our employees that we regret the most. All of them as a team always did their best to secure reliable and stable operations — even in the stressful weeks behind us. I would like to thank all of them from the bottom of my heart. I apologise to our passengers who now cannot take their Germania flights as planned.”
The airline says that their short-term liquidity needs emerged due to “unforeseeable events” such as “massive increases in fuel prices last summer and the simultaneous weakening of the euro against the US dollar, considerable delays in phasing in aircraft into the fleet and an unusually high number of maintenance events that the airline’s aircraft required.”
For those of you not familiar with Germania, they’re a German airline that has been in business for over 40 years. Initially they operated charter flights, but in recent years they also operated scheduled flights. The airline had a fleet of 30 Airbus and Boeing narrowbody aircraft, and last year transported more than four million passengers.
Last month there were signs of the airline being in trouble. On January 8, 2019, Germania announced that they were examining various financing options to meet their short-term needs. They said that it was business as usual for now, but obviously that didn’t last long. Then last week the airline announced they couldn’t pay their employees anymore, so the writing was on the wall here.
This is of course incredibly unfortunate for both employees and passengers who were booked to fly with the airline.
Just a note: the Swiss subsidiary "Germania Flug AG" is still operating a full schedule as planned...
https://www.flygermania.com/en-ch/breaking-news/?tx_news_pi1%5Bnews%5D=880&tx_news_pi1%5Bcontroller%5D=News&tx_news_pi1%5Baction%5D=detail&cHash=d39ae48ae9a857858131cdeaabd3d42f
God their collapse is going to cause GERmania!!!
Are there frequent flyers called Germaniacs?!
I'll stop with the rubbish puns
Why has everybody (including Lucky) forgotten about Monarch?
@Phillip
Portugalia was bought by TAP Air Portugal and still exists. It flies under the TAP Express brand but if you take one of the Embraer flights, you'll see "operated by Portugalia Airlines".
@LarryInNYC
Well, I'm sure all the people in Germany and the Middle East (in places like Turkey, Lebanon, Israel; from Beirut alone it flew from 4 or 5 German airports) have heard the sound it's fall made...
So, what's the next Euro carrier to go bust: Wow Air then Norwegian?
Some of those that we have lost (that I can remember) Air Berlin, Air Lituanica, BMI, Cobalt Air, Estonian Air, Malev, Spanair, Primera air, Portugalia, SkyGreece, Transaero and I'm sure there are others.
I'm not sure if I'm alone here, but is anyone else fairly unsurprised by all this? The sheer volume of airlines going out of business (a lot of which were flying under the radar [puns!] of any sort of real notoriety - @LarryInNYC) seems like the European market was supersaturated and that this was simply a matter of time. Further, a lot of these appear to be fairly small airlines that perhaps came into being...
I'm not sure if I'm alone here, but is anyone else fairly unsurprised by all this? The sheer volume of airlines going out of business (a lot of which were flying under the radar [puns!] of any sort of real notoriety - @LarryInNYC) seems like the European market was supersaturated and that this was simply a matter of time. Further, a lot of these appear to be fairly small airlines that perhaps came into being when the economy was a boon to potentially risky financial endeavours, like small charter airlines with a limited fleet and limited capital in the event of an economic downturn. But, I'm no airline magnate...
That livery reminds me just a wee bit of Ozark Airlines
Too bad! They used to be one of the last true holiday airlines and I had quite a nice flight with them a few month ago - reviewed here https://pennypennypennyblog.com/2018/03/17/when-we-were-young/
@Joe Chivas Unless your ticket was part of an inclusive tour arrangement, I am afraid you won't get a refund. However, Lufthansa, Easyjet and other airlines offer reduced fares for Germania passengers.
If an airline falls in the forest and no one has ever heard of it, does it make a sound?
I would have said that over the past decade, there has been a large number of European Airlines that are now defunct! From Portugalia to Malev the list is extensive...
Hold on, wait a minute. Don't just drop this on us without some info on what we can do with our Germania reservations. How can we get refunds? Will it be automatic?
A government shutdown happened ahead of schedule perhaps?