Czech Airlines Ceasing Operations, Being Absorbed By Smartwings

Flew Czech Airlines on my first trip to the USA so it will be forever in my heart. RIP.

They should be absorbed by DELTA instead.

Actually, they have *TWO* (not one) A320's and they are both flying right now from Paris and Madrid to Prague

Ugh! Why? what would that do Mr. I love Delta. In some ways, delta is overrated

I am just wondering why the combined airline not retain the CSA brand itself, similar to how vistara took on the brand of Air India. The CSA brand has more history

This doesn't have much to do with CSA's demise today, but I flew them in the late 80's from Montreal to JFK as a fifth freedom flight. Flight attendants and passengers were smoking during the whole flight. Passengers walking about the cabin during takeoff and landing, seatbelts not fastened for most passengers. Tang like drink was served in economy. Flimsy broken seats on a Soviet airliner. I remember thinking to myself I was lucky to survive the 55 minute flight. The flight was inexpensive though!

A220 are going to be delivered, first next month. They will have CSA livery.

They were a great airline until about 2010 when they started aggressively cutting routes. They did stabilise and created a credible growth plan at the end of the last decade, but then COVID came and the Czech government had no real interest in bailing them out.

I agree. Similar to US Air and American Airlines.

This seems to be the fate for many legacy flag carriers of smaller former Warsaw Pact/Eastern European countries. Now CSA, but we've seen Malev, Estonian Air, B&H Airlines, FlyLAL and Adria going that way too, for example. Most have a home market that's just too small for a full-fledged airline with just one base, also in terms of possible spending power by the local audience (especially up to some years ago: those countries really saw impressive growth over the last 3 decades), and most saw their plans hindered by the rise of low cost carriers like Ryanair and Wizzair (or Smartwings in this case) at their hub airports.

Smartwings is still planning on taking delivery of 4 A220s. This first delivered aircraft will carry the registration OK-EYA and operate in the Czech Airlines livery. According to the reservation system, the first passenger flight will take place on November 22nd on the route from Prague to Paris CDG

Indeed it is interesting to look at the 7 Comecon countries in Europe besides the USSR and see what became of their state airlines:

Albania - Albtransport - established 1957, the state air service company which operated occasionally as a civil airline, ceased civil airline services 1991; then Alberia, established 1991 by Albtransport for political transport; then Albanian Airlines, established 1992 as a joint venture between Alberia and Tyrolean Airlines, privatised in 1997, ceased operations 2011.

Bulgaria - Balkan Bulgarian Airlines - established 1947 as TABSO, changed name 1967, partly privatised 1999, entered receivership 2001, ceased operations 2002.

Czechoslovakia - CSA - established 1923, partially privatised 1992, ceasing operations 2024.

East Germany - Interflug - established 1958, ceased operations 1991

Hungary - Malev Hungarian Airlines - established 1946 as Maszovlet, a joint venture with the Soviet Union, became fully Hungarian and renamed Malev 1954, privatised 2007, nationalised 2010, ceased operations 2012.

Poland - LOT Polish Airlines - established 1928

Romania - TAROM - established 1946s as TARS, a joint venture with the Soviet Union, became fully Romanian and renamed TAROM 1954.

So of seven, after today only two remain.

I have some fond memories of flying OK. It was a nice airline. I understand it had some legacy problems, but still don’t understand why the discontinued their brand and use Smartwings instead.

Are you ok? you seriously have to bring DL into everything. Some times i wonder if you are being serious.

if they were only operating a handful of flights lately then that history is thin with current consumers. People care about what can you do for me now, not what did you do forty years ago.

It looks like you haven't been here too long. This person is making fun of another user (who is, imho, rightly a target). Since Ben clearly dgaf about what happens in the comments this will go on *ad infinitum*...

OUCH! SKYTEAM lost a member, which is essential to the SAS 1 Million Miles Challenge!

The A220s order is still on (not sure about 321LR). They will fly under QS AOC obviously but under the CSA brand/livery.

It's not since CSA isn't an Eurobonus partner anyway.

Delta is not an EU company so being absorbed by Delta would mean losing traffic rights on every single route CSA operates. A great plan indeed!

I have a nostalgic memory of the past
in 1979 when there was a very serious fire accident at santacruz /
sahar airport bombay, CSA (OK) flight was coming from SIN and the
next stop was bombay. the captain decided to divert flight to MAA
instead of going to bombay. i was at MAA apt on a sunday. evening
there was a phone call from Control Tower saying OK515 was going to
land in MAA. when most of the traffic handling staff left for the day
i recalled selectiive staff to come to the airport and meet the flight
and do flight handling. i arranged with indian oil corporation for
refueling, arranged with flight dispatch manager for new flight plan
and for weather chart from met office and licensed engineer for
certification. i confirmed the above arrangement with the airport
manager of CSA at bombay airport when he called me.
the flight was met and given all assistance and the flight left for
cairo, to athens and then to Prague. I am very sad now to hear the
demise of the airline. after 40 years i will remember.

That mostly comes down to spite, since the acquisition by Smartwings was sort of a hostile takeover.
Whereas OK operated like a standard network carrier, QS mostly runs vacation charters, many of which are bookable as standard LCC flights. There was no love lost, even if they haven't really competed head to head.

Now that the ownership consolidation is over, QS is keeping its AOC (it also has multiple subsidiaries in other countries) and they'll only use Czech Airlines as the holding company. That being said, the brand is mostly a hollow shell now. Flights sold by OK have been long operated on QS metal with QS crews as typical LCC flights.

Pre-war and pre-covid, OK also bet heavily on the Russian market, and became a bit too comfortable in that position. There used to be solid demand for travel from Russia to CZ and beyond with quick transfers in Prague, but that has evaporated overnight.
Of course, this is just the cherry on top. The airline simply wasn't managed correctly and mostly survived on selling off assets in the past 15 years. They briefly became profitable in 2018-19, but we all know what came next.
Now the new owners have zero interest in developing the network carrier model.

This past summer, CSA has requested for its AOC to be revoked, hence the end of operations under this brand.
This has further ramifications:
- The elimination of business class (except for a single 737 used for longer scheduled charters).
- Exit from SkyTeam.
- The OKplus loyalty program is being discontinued and all miles expire as of October 26th.
- End of all codeshares and interlining.

With the exception of their CDG and MAD services (soon to be taken over by A220s), the airline with focus almost exclusively on vacation destinations and scheduled charter flights.

What I will miss is using Czech airlines to manage SkyTeam reservations and seat selections, particularly for China Airlines

While CSA is one of the few legacy carriers in the region that I never flew, I thought this would be a good opportunity to give a quick shoutout to Malev and Adria - two others who had a similar fate. You are gone but not forgotten! 🙂

Good riddance. Ruddest airline staff I have encountered in sixty years of flying.

I agree. Flew them once and they were actively rude to us. Never again.

Dgaf....that's a new one LOL!!

because you have some ass hole who thinks the same joke is funny 80 thousand times later and on every single thread