Hi All,
I see there's another topic already on the demise of Spanair, but I wanted to share an article I decided to write which may help explain in further detail the reasons behind this closure.
It's quite long so didn't want to clog the other topic up!!
Thanks for looking.
The faces of Spanair employees sadly say it all. Photo courtesy of ABC news
Friday 27th January 2012 was the day everyone was so anxiously waiting for, the middle eastern airline Qatar Airways had planned a final meeting with the board of directors of Spain's third largest carrier Spanair to decide whether it would or not buy a 49% stake and invert a much needed cash injection of 150 million euros into the financially strapped Star Alliance member.
Qatar Airways had for weeks if not months shown it's interest in buying a large stake in a European airline to further expand it's ever growing route network. In previous years we have seen the Arabian carrier buy a huge share in Air Berlin and invert close to 220 million euros, something Spanair could only dream about.
It has only come to light recently how the Hungarian national carrier Malév Airlines had been receiving "illegal" subsidiaries from it's government and as soon as it got complaints on the matter the European Union Court of Justice in Brussels could not have been any quicker in making a case out of it.
The result, that it would have to pay all of the money back again.
As the aviation sector is such a competitive market it wasn't long after that Ryanair in their usual fashion decided to throw a fit and start accusing the Catalan airline Spanair of receiving illegal subsidiaries from the Catalan Government, the equivalent of some 100 million euros every year.
In the eyes of some this was a shocking statement to make considering Ryanair only last year was involved in blackmailing the Catalan Government to increase it's subsidiaries just for flying in and out of Girona and Reus airports. The airline them self have been upping their route network in Spain by making a new base at the airport of Palma de Mallorca and introducing many new routes from Barcelona el Prat Airport. This may well have been another motive for the accusation at Spanair as Ryanair quite simply wanted to wipe out any competitors at the airport.
Following this the European Union in Brussels made an official statement that it would investigate the legality of the subsidiaries received by Spanair from the Catalan Government of whom only in 2009 bought a stake in Spanair to make Barcelona Airport more of a gateway to the world.
Many experts in the sector easily agreed that Spanair could defend the legality of it's funding if Qatar Airways invested the much needed cash injection thus saying that the subsidiaries and Qatar's fund were part of a plan to reform the airline.
Earlier this week we have seen how Iberia, the national carrier of Spain has released information on it's own new low cost carrier which will start operations in March this year. The president of Iberia Señor Don Velázquez also made a painful and very direct comment how "With the introduction of Iberia Express, Spanair doesn't have a future".
So where did it go so horribly wrong? Is the question on everyone's lips right now.
The president of Spanair; Ferran Soriano announced how the airline was on the last leg home with the Qatar Airways deal and also assured everyone that he was to
stay at Spanair for the foreseeable future, despite being linked to be moving to England to become the new chairman of Manchester City football club.
But shortly after 17:00 (Local time in Spain) Qatar officially announced it was pulling out of the deal and with no further comment to make. However rumors were leaked that the reason was because Qatar was afraid that if the E.U.Court was indeed to take legal action against Spanair that it would have to repay all the money given to it. And thus for simply being scared they pulled out.
As some kind of horror movie a thick black cloud rolled over Catalonia and rain pounded down.
With that the board of directors of Spanair stayed on and released it's own statement saying that it was discussing how to operate in the future and that it could possibly be filing a request to stop operations with AENA.
Within only 90 minutes confirmed reports started circulating that the booking system for Spanair had been taken offline shortly followed by the whole website which just had a telephone number of the customer service center saturated on the front page. Both passengers and employees were left in the dark as to what was happening, twitter had received over 8,000 posts with the word Spanair in them.
And then came an official statement from the airline in Spanish stating that the airline for safety reasons had decided to cease all operations simply because of it's financial position and that it didn't have enough money to even run for 3 more days.
The last scheduled flight was programmed to land at 22:00 hours and all planes to be grounded with effect of 2AM the following day.
The moment checkin staff are told of the company's closure. -Kote Rodrigo/EFE
All this and 5 planes were still flying in the air, how must the crew have felt upon landing at their destinations? And the passengers some of whom fortunate enough to be arriving home, others going away on holiday and quite simply stranded thousands of miles away.
Flights scheduled to fly that evening were all cancelled, one plane from Barcelona to Madrid which had already boarded all it's passengers and was taxiing to the runway was turned around and headed back to the terminal where passengers were forced to disembark.
Many employees some 2,000 of them still were unaware of what was going on and demanded information from a representative of the airline. Many of whom had locked themselves in the office in Madrid until they got answers and most importantly whether or not they would get paid for January.
Disgraceful as it is one of the principal reasons for this mess, Ryanair in just over an hour after the official statement of the closure had already taken advantage and published on their website a "Rescue Fare" for 49€ one way (and no that didn't include taxes). Easyjet, Vueling, Iberia & Air Nostrum while not as soon as Ryanair similarly followed suit launching rescue fares at the direct request of AENA and Spanair in an effort to relocate passengers onto other flights.
Spanair has had a long history in it's 25 years of operations dating all the way back to 1986, one that certainly left a mark on it's reputation was the disastrous crash of one of it's MD82 aircraft at Madrid Barajas in 2008 where the majority of passengers onboard so tragically lost their lives, an investigation has just been opened again last week to further study it in more detail.
From this point on the airline has slowly been heading down hill and could have been losing up to a million euros a day.
Of course there are many other considering factors into the demise of what could have been a great airline but all have been errors in one way or another.
Now the shattered pieces of a dream to have a privately owned Spanish airline are slowly starting to be picked up and in it's trail of destruction leaving at least 4,000 direct and indirect worker on the street without a clear future.
Some 23 thousand passengers expecting to fly this weekend on over 500 flights now have to find alternatives, and many of those waking up and going to the airport only to find out that the Spanair desks are all shut...never to open again.
What is our world coming to? Everyday the news is getting worse and quite frankly the financial collapse of Spanair couldn't have come at a worse time after the Spanish Government only just announcing the same day that there are 5 million unemployed people in the country.
This also comes as a stark reminder to airline passengers who choose to travel on incredibly cheap low cost airlines as opposed to supporting traditional airlines like Spanair that you are without knowing it poking at a very fragile industry on the verge of collapse.
Only time will tell who will be the next casualty of a ruined economy, already having lost 15 airlines since 2000.
Myself, the author. Would like to extend my sincere apologies to everyone affected including the workers and their families in such troubled times and my thoughts go out to you all. Even I am affected by all this, I currently have a boarding pass next to me for a return flight with Spanair next week. Of which has now become worthless and a a part of history. But let's not forget all the good times Spanair has had in their time operating and me personally it's been a pleasure to fly with you.
I leave you with this short video from Spanish TV which nicely resumes the current situation:
Spanair, una aerolínea con vocación de líder bajo constantes turbulencias - YouTube
All the best,
Matthew
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Spanair.....bad news!!.
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Spanair closes it's doors after 25 years (my own take).
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