Once you look into it, its surprising how many airlines close down each year, and even more scarily, how many are closed for safety reasons. There have been almost as many Western Airlines collapsed as in the Third World, but usually they were no loss to these countries, as they have other airlines based in the countries.
Here's a few of the more notable Western casualties:
1) PAN AMERICAN WORLD AIRWAYS | US | Founded 1927 Closed 1991 Fleet size 226 - a Palestinian Arab terrorist attack in 1988 destroyed confidence in the passenger safety and it never recovered by the time that fuel prices rose in 1991
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| Pan Am - The Future Once Looked Bright |
2) SABENA | Belgium | Founded 1923 Closed 2001 Fleet size 87 - closed following the Saudi funded 9/11 attacks on transatlantic airlines business.
3) BALKAN AIRLINES | Bulgaria | Founded 1947 Closed 2002 Fleet size 150 - a player in the the 1970's but the company did not survive the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. In 1999, it was acquired by Israel's 'Zeevi Group' and 'Arkia airlines'. The Israel connection insured that Balkan lost its lucrative Arab routes and the airlines finally became defunct.
4) TWA | United States | Founded 1925 Closed 2001 Fleet size 190 - TWA was another major American carrier which neglected the deregulation of the domestic market and had to file for bankruptcy and was subsequently merged with American Airlines.
5) ALITALIA-LINEE AEREE ITALIANE | Italy | Founded 1946 Closed 2009 Fleet size 172 - The Italian national carrier went in to bankruptcy. It was overstaffed and under performing for decades and the Italian government tried to bailout the company by investing nearly 5 billion Euro's from 1998. EU rules restricted further state investment in the sinking airline.
6) MALEV | Hungary | Founded 1946 Closed 2012 Fleet size 22 - The Hungarian national Airline went bankrupt
Actually once they were listed, I noticed that it was either Arab related terrorism or financial mismanagement that saw off the Western airlines .... But there are many many other failed airlines around the world (including the UK) .... many because of airworthiness concerns, quite worrying really, in a 'how come so many are flybynights' kinda way .... LOL
It doesn't surprise me that so many airlines go under, it's the ones that keep going that puzzle me. The highly technical and demanding work which goes into making this form of transport so safe must be huge drain on a company which has to battle with competition and ever-rising running costs.
ReplyDeleteIt's always a surprise to me that Aeroflot survived the end of communism, considering its reputation 'aeroflop'.
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