Bamboo Airways Struggling To Survive, Can't Pay Pilots On-Time

Sounds like what happened with Kingfisher Airlines in India about 10 years ago (And Vistara should be careful now for similar reasons)

Trying to launch a full service airline with luxury amenities unfortunately doesn't seem to work too well in super value conscious countries where the majority will choose a low cost carrier zero frills airline seat even if the price difference is a tiny bit higher for a full service carrier.

Did they use weather as an excuse to not paying on time?

@Luke - Kingfisher was an ego project masquerading as an airline. Not a fair comparison. When your owner insists on interviewing all flight attendants personally (bonus points if they participate in the swimsuit round?), makes his son the airline CEO for a day as a birthday present, and believes fleet planning is "five of each" (including the A340-500 and A380) it really isn't fair to compare them even to the Bamboo train smash.

I guess their investors and staff have been bamboozled

Airline CEO for the day is quite possibly the best birthday present ever

I recently flew on Bamboo from Tokyo (NRT) - Hanoi (HAN). One of the strangest flights I've been on. They moved me to the exit row during check in, saying I needed to sit there because I was the only English-speaking passenger. They must have been at 30% occupancy, max. Every pax got a row to themselves. The food was quite good, though!

I have too taken an interest in this airline. The flight I took was good but not above average to compete with Vietnam Airlines, but that is just one experience. Love their livery of course.

'Course, then there was that Aeroflot pilot who made his kid Captain-For-A-Minute.....

So I fly for another Vietnamese airlines. My colleagues over at Bamboo have been complaining about the lack of pay pretty much since the pandemic. We took heavy handed actions to prevent the spread so airlines took a big hit and while our airlines have the resources of being a long established large airline with Vietnam Airlines obviously having government backings Bamboo was in its infancy and FTC group for all purposes is pretty shady anyhow. I want to see Bamboo succeed as I want to see competition in this space but they came at the worst time possible to survive.

Flights to London have been cancelled as of October, that was one of there higher occupancy routes thanks to fares less than VN circa £800 VN to £450 Bamboo.

Vietnamese here. Pretty much everyone that has aviation knowledge knows that Bamboo is doom from the start. Awful strategy, getting the 787, opening routes to Europe, and planning to fly to US in first 2 years of its existence without any partners or alliance (they only have interline agreements with 5 airlines !) is insanity. Vietnam Airlines took 20 years to fly to San Francisco because they know the first couple of years operating that routes would incurred heavy financial losses. A startup airline with no financial backing won’t survive this kind of losses. And then also another factor: Covid, the founder went to jail because of insider trading, … 7 out of 30 planes is not parked, they are being returned to the lenders, and there will be at least 5 or 6 more by the end of 2023. To be fair, I am surprised that they are still operating, but I don’t think it will last for 1-2 more year(s)

Great shame of Bamboo go down !
Used them this year from Sydney to UK - great service and staff
Howard
Sydney

Are you the German speaking captain on Vietnam Airlines?

Vistara's owned by Tata/SQ and is already in the process of merging into Air India. Better fate than folding altogether but hopefully the service standards of Air India are brought up to Vistara's and not the other way around

Not a surprise, from the very beginning, everything does not make senses as a plan. I recently kind of trying to look for specifically flying them, but their network just too much making no senses, cannot even fit in any of my travel plan, so unfortunately.

Explains the cancellation of long-haul routes like London Gatwick then...

Well Bamboo was nice at the beginning, thing changed abruptly after FLC left, pilots were committed to stay there yet Company didn’t renew contacts from expats since June with less than a week notice periods, now we are most of us unemployed.

With the London route canceled, my wife is booked to return to Vietnam January. Do I get any money back? What’s the process to claim?

That’s a great shame. I flew LGW-HAN this year in J via Aeroplan miles and thought the food and seat etc were on a par with SQ. Of course the flight attendants didn’t speak much English.
The cabin only had a handful of passengers and I did wonder how they would survive. Covid has really hit a lot of airlines hard and if they are not well capitalised and in the main alliances I guess they will struggle as we are seeing here.

Good luck if you booked it via Aeroplan and have to ring their call centre. They take about half a day to pick up the phone and there’s no way to message them.

Hi Chris,

Has your wife received her refund yet or been able to get in contact with the airline? I was planned to fly in January from LGW to Hanoi but they cancelled it back in August. Still waiting on my refund!

Wondering if anyone can help?

I purchased Bamboo Airways flight tickets from LGW to Hanoi for Jan 2024 through Lastminute.com. My flight was cancelled in August and I still have not received my refund. Last Minute have apparently been trying to get hold of the airline to no avail. I have also been trying to get in contact with no response.

Not really sure what else I can do as all of my contact attempts have been ignored by the airline. Can't help but feel like I have been scammed!

Is anyone else in the same situation or similar? Or does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks

Not just me then