DUO ceased trading

[ladies and gentlemen]

Just heard Duo have ceased trading. Info on their website duo.com

[bacardi walla]

Maybe moving away from BA was a mistake after all. No wonder duo were planning a massive expansion, they were in the sh1te financially. Maybe another new start up will be announced to replace them, or will MOL take a look ?

Good luck to all those staff out of a job this morning.

If it's any help, Ryanair, easyJet and most of the UK charter airlines are still recruiting in various areas.

[Flightmapping]

Just taking a quick look at alternatives for pax already booked / thinking of booking with them. According to BHX, there are no immediate plans for anyone to step in and replace them on these routes, but obviously its early days.

For virtually all routes, the option of KLM via AMS, AF via CDG etc is available. Other options below, viability depends on final destination:

From BHX:

NCE - TOM from CVT
LYS - TOM to MRS + TGV? AF to CDG & TGV (direct) or AF to LYS?
GVA - Swiss connect via ZRH, BSL or take train from ZRH - direct c. 2 1/2 hours.
CGN - BA or LH to DUS. Frequent ICE & local services to Cologne (45 mins). Or FRA; 45 mins to Cologne by ICE. Both direct from airport. FRA station adjacent to terminal; DUS by monorail - add 15 mins for transfer.
STR - BA or LH to FRA. ICE 70 mins (direct)
CPH - SAS
GOt - City Airlines
ARN, OSL, VIE - take connecting flight or go via LON.

From EDI:
FR from PIK only real alternatives involving direct flights, but large distances at both ends:
OSL - PIK to TRF
MXP - PIK to BGY

[Lite]

The most likely thing I can see as happening over at BHX, is either for the existing operators like Lufthansa, Air France or Swiss to fill in the void on the routes that duo were operating, or for other carriers to expand their operations at BHX or EMA.

Perhaps MyTravelLite will go back to their original business plan of providing a no-frills alternative to Birmingham, as opposed to Stansted and launch some business routes - (although it seems all attempts at this have failed!)

EasyJet have already stated their intention to launch CGN, they serve GVA - whose to say they wont add a Berlin flight - especially as Berlin is a big up & coming base at U2.

Also, Ryanair have said they will grow their operations from EMA - why not add Bergamo, Torp & Skavsta.

[MaxMet]

Shame

Saw it on BBC news website that the stopped trading at 0001 BST

What about the crews and staff have they been laid off?


mM

[Joe Curry]

>>From EDI:

FR from PIK only real alternatives involving direct flights, but large distances at both ends:<<

The story of our lives on Scotland's east coast... :* :*

[dada]

daft name anyway. duo money? they do now!

[Hial Flyer]

Perhaps if the people on the east of Scotland supported the flights that were available it may have been a different story. If rumours are correct a lot of their flights from EDI had less than a 20% load factor.

They were a good airline to fly with - shame they didn't get the support.

[martinhardy]

Its such a shame that DUO has ceased trading. I was looking forward to using them this summer. Ironically i was about to book a rtn to LYS for June last night. Thank god i never booked the ticket.

I hope someone fills their void, and i would really like to see a low cost alternative to those routes. They were a great choice!!!


Good luck to those who have lost their jobs :>
Bet they well angry.

Bye


Martin

[GoEDI]

Such a shame :{ As has already been said. Wit hthis one loss EDI has virtually lost all its Euro routes! BHX not fairing much better.
Regarding lack of passengers, it was the same from EDI and BHX, I blame a lack of advertising and public awareness from the beginning.
For your information, their busiest route was EDI-OSL!

[GoEDI]

Any chance of them returning?

[dontdoit]

Good. The lo-co worm has turned. Hopefully one of the biggies will be next.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

The lo-co worm has turned eh? Ummm, right.

I hardly think DUO qualified as a low cost airline did it?

Sorry to anyone who lost a job through this failure - must be miserable as sin.

Cheers,

WWW

[stalling attitude]

dontdoit,

you say you hope one of the the big loco's will be next. can you say just how many more people you hope to see lose their jobs. maybe it would be great if EASYJET went bust . that would put a couple of thousand out of work. I cant think of any better news for aviation all those people looking for work.
i dont want to see you lose your job whoever you work for.

grow up

[Dom Joly]

Thanks for your support, we appreciate it

Still in stunned shock at the moment. Can't see why the administrators have been called in as we were initially told that we could operate for 2 years on the initial funding. Our pax figures only narrowly missed the projected target figures so why only 6 month operation and not 24?

Especially after the help from our friends at Scottish Board of Commerce which wasn't factored into this forecast.

It was a very innovative idea with a lot of promise, sadly let down by poor advertising. Let this be a lesson to all the other airlines that listen to these high paid agencies. If it doesn't seem right then it probably isn't right. Don't believe everything these consultants say!

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

I would just say on the matter you brought up - advertising.

Being not far south of Brum I was amazed that I never saw a single advert for DUO. No the TV, nor the radio, nor the billboards, nor the buses. Nothing, nadda, nilch.

I used to think Go spent far too much money on plastering themselves all over London. I guess now I see why.

Good luck to all those hit by this, stress, worry, misery, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

WWW

[GK430]

There was an advert in a farmer's field on the edge of the M42.
A duck was the only thing you could make out whilst driving at speed and if you didn't realise that duo had a duck on their billboards, you would not have known who the advert related to.

(Who came up with the duck anyway)

Meanwhile, the two in the fields that relate to Thomsonfly inside 2 DME Rwy 33 tend to get noticed:ouch:

[P.Pilcher]

For some reason, and it may be cost, as far back as I can remember, airlines operating smaller aircraft have always been reluctant to advertise, preferring some other promotional technique such as personal appraoches to travel agents.

In the late 90's Brymon were happily and profitably operating their BHX-LGW shuttle. They had to use a larger aircraft (DHC6 - SD3-30) but never advertised. Passenger numbers failed to grow thus route was closed down months later. Remember Community Express? No adverts and soon no business.
My last airline took over a route to Aberdeen from BMA. No advertising and after a month I distinctly heard a travel agent in the departure terminal building say that there were no longer any flights from that airport to Aberdeen. The enquiring passengers would have to travel about 50 miles to get a flight and we were doing 3 rotations a day!

P.P.

[Trolley-Dolly-Babe]

Such a terrible shame as their product was wonderful.

However, the advertising I saw was always very vague. Nothing to do with airlines, more like a center parcs sort of advert.

Of course, they only offered bookings through airkiosk system to start with, which meant not even travel agents could book as far as I know!

Fatal mistake IMHO.

[MerchantVenturer]

For some reason, and it may be cost, as far back as I can remember, airlines operating smaller aircraft have always been reluctant to advertise, preferring some other promotional technique such as personal appraoches to travel agents.

Flybe have plastered the buses in the Bristol area with details of their flights out of BRS.

They also conducted a high profile local television and local newspaper advertising campaign in this area.

In fact it seems every Bristol bus is either advertising Flybe or easyJet - a bit of an exaggeration but these airlines are certainly using this medium heavily.

[GoEDI]

duo occasionaly had promotions running in the Sunday Herald in Scotalnd and apart from that there was one(!) taxi driving around Edinburgh that had duo titles so small that you would be lucky to notice them if you were standing right next to them!
On the other hand FlyGlobespan are going from strength to strength up here and have adverts plastered on the sides of buses, bus stops and t.v ads.

[Hotel Tango]

This is not a spotter remark, but I didn't think their livery did much in terms of advertising. Didn't quite make you turn your head and think, "hey, who are they? Must surf the net and check them out". To the untrained eye their aircraft looked more like corporate jets. I think this WAS their intention but it wasn't a good self-advertising strategy. Very sorry to see them go though. Best wishes to all DUO staff.

[Lite]

Hotel Tango, I remember surfing their website last week when looking for a return trip to Koeln (up against EZY who won out!) and there was a quote on the website saying something like "we don't want to paint our aircraft in brash primary colours - thats just not us" or something along those lines.

The duo brand was trying to be a smart, full-service & executive type airline - although sadly like Air1 & Legend Airlines before them, this type of operation on its own doesnt win out!

[dontdoit]

WWW

There you go again, confusing low cost with no frills. Take off those orange-tinted spectacles and I will spell this out for you one last time.

You work for a no-frills carrier, who happens to be low-cost ("lo-co") also. Duo was "lo-co" but with frills. The common element therefore is in the "low-cost" - meaning, low cost base, NOT that all seats are for sale for 1p.

You'll never get into BA with such a poor understanding of airline economics, no matter how hard you try!

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

I said that I hardly thought Duo qualified as a low cost airline.

Explain to me then how Duo had a low cost base because I didn't think the headcount/aircraft ratio, the aircraft type, the home base nor many of the routes were ones associated with low cost airlines.

I didn't think they even wanted to be thought of as a low cost airline? Did they?

There's no need to be brash old chum. Having just searched your username for posts I note that around 50% of them appear to be describable as easyJet bashing. They suggest you are maybe a Flybe pilot with a hatred of easyJet.


This time last year you wrote about easy I'd give it 6 months. Tops. This really is turning into Air Europe Mark II. (Yes, and I was there before anyone starts AGAIN!)


Well - sorry old chap, flying more pax than BA these days and making money in the process. :uhoh:

Cheer up,

WWW

[dontdoit]

<<There's no need to be brash old chum. Having just searched your username for posts I note that around 50% of them appear to be describable as easyJet bashing. They suggest you are maybe a Flybe pilot with a hatred of easyJet.>>

Wrong again - never applied to (or worked for) either of those outfits, better luck next time.


<<Well - sorry old chap, flying more pax than BA these days and making money in the process>>

Not according to the figures I've seen, easyjet 21.8 m guests last year compared to BA's 38 m. BA very much in profit, eJ heading for another record loss http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/040430/214/eshkf.html

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Well whoever you work for you are a black belt in easyJet bashing. And whilst not wanting to wander too far from the thread topic of Duo I think you'll find EZY carried 1,996,790 passengers in March 2004 and that's more than BA. Which is quite something for what was laughed at as a joke in 1996.

As for profitability. Come off it. You and I and the whole industry knows that easyJet publishes a Winter and a Summer set of results. The Winter shows a small loss, the Summer a much bigger profit. Hence a year on year increasing Net profit.

So Spring time hysterics about 'easyJet losing money' are somewhat pointless.

Your view last year that the company was "Air Europe II and only had six months left to go" has proved to be somewhat wide of the mark. But don't let that put you off.

Cheers

WWW

[Flightmapping]

Does anyone know:

If refunds are available for payments by credit card, I assume debit card payments get nothing. Makes you think twice before "saving" £4 on the booking fee, but I'd say the chances of airline failure don't justify paying the extra (except for one or two airlines I'd probably be in trouble for mentioning).

What if you pay by American Express? Does that count as a credit card? What about small businesses paying using company charge cards? Presumably, they aren't covered by the consumer credit act?

How many travel insurance policies cover the value of the ticket, let alone the consequential losses, which could be quite considerable?

Also, I'm not sure how much the established scheduled players (LH etc) would want to open up new routes to the UK. Yes, EZ for EMA > SXF must be a high probability, but do SAS have the resources to open up new routes to Scandinavia? I can see Flybe being an obvious replacement on some routes, but I imagine they'd be much more interested in LYS & GVA , which must have good year round markets? I don't see 'Lite wanting to add any of these routes - except NCE, but that's already well covered from CVT & NEMA.

[dontdoit]

WWW - good to see that you won't let the facts get in the way of a good Orange story, as always!

I haven't made these figures up - on scheduled services alone in March 2004, BA carried 2,948,000 passengers. It doesn't take a mathematical genius to work out that that's quite a few more than your 1,996,790 "earned seats". Just over 47% more in fact. And they did some charter work on top of that, but no need to count them...the numbers speak for themselves.

Toodle pip!

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

That Mainline or including the Franchises? Genuine question as the media have been carrying reports that both Ryan and Easy have had higher monthly passenger figured than BA in recent months.

Or is it with the qualification 'European passengers' - ie BA shorthaul only.

Perhaps we should start another thread here as this is supposed to be about Duo.

Cheers

WWW

[brabazon]

Flightmapping - I think it's down to the individual to contact their Credit card companies, I know someone who has done that and is expecting a partial refund that way.

Don'doit - I think you are the one who is confused about low costs, although the term is somewhat misused. The term low cost was coined in the US when Southwest was able to demonstrate considerably lower Operating Costs per ASM than its mainline competitors. On the basis of its low costs it was able to make profits with substantially lower fares. Although the average traveller thinks low cost means low ticket cost that's something different. As for Duo - I do not think that operating 50-70 regional jets will get you to the level of operating costs per ASM or ASK as easyJet - although Flybe claim they get there with the Q400. Not only would Duo's costs have been higher but they had an unusual fare structure which offered low fares with no extras plus high fares with some non-flight based extras (taxi service within a certain radius of BHX, lounges etc) at the same time. Coupled with poor or confusing advertising they were struggling to get their loads up. Perhaps if they'd been given the summer they may have made it, but it required more investment which it seems was not forthcoming.

[Land After]

Flightmapping - if the total value of the transaction was £100 or more, the consumer credit act will apply and a refund can be had from the card issuer. With debit cards, you'll be relying on anything you can get from Duo.

Amex issue both charge cards (no chance of refund) and credit cards (see above). You need to check which one you have.

You'll need to check the T&Cs of any travel insurance, as cover will vary by policy.

[deltahotel]

Flightmapping. Charge cards are covered by the Consumer Credit Act. As far as the Act is concerned, a Charge Card is a Credit Card, just with different terms of repayment. Hope this helps. DH

[Land After]

Under the provisions of Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. If you buy goods or services costing in excess of £100 using a credit card, should the goods or service prove to be defective, you will have an equal claim for compensation against both the seller of the goods or service and the finance company.


Section 75(equal liability)only applies to credit transactions, therefore, the finance company does not have any liability for purchases that have been paid for by chargecards as these are debit cards not credit cards.American Express and Diners Card are examples of debit cards.

[jon01]

BACX to commence old duo routes:

BA Citiexpress will commence daily flights to Lyon and Vienna this Wednesday from Birmingham. Lyon to become twice daly ASAP.

An extra 146 will be based at Birmingham.

Nice will commence this Saturday, 1 weekly initially.

Other airlines are already interested in other duo routes...

Jon

[GoEDI]

What about EDI? NO BA CItiexpress at EDI! Remember that the EDI routes were more succesful thatn the BHX routes, from duo.
SAS should take up OSL, as has already been rumoured.

[Gripe n Moan]

According to the BBC ceefax, Duo's administrators only made 260 out of it's 300 staff redundant (not that that is not enough).

Are they retaining some flight crew or is this engineering staff ?

What about the Duo mis-management?

[GoEDI]

Maybe for a possible restart? Sounds crazy I know. :confused:

[jon01]

BA Citiexpress will start Birmingham-Berlin TXL as soon as more aircraft are available.



Jon

[Frankfurt_Cowboy]

Does anyone know if Duo's demise was brought about by the Jonah of Pprune, teachin, joining them??

[Buster the Bear]

Bust budget airline owed £20m

The administrators of failed budget airline Duo have revealed that the carrier accumulated debts of nearly £20 million before it went bust.

Deloitte said the Birmingham-based company owed creditors around £14 million and is expecting claims of up to £5 million from passengers demanding refunds.

Up to 1,000 of them will be travellers who were left stranded at more than a dozen of Duo's European destinations when the firm went into receivership on Saturday.

Details about the firm's debts were released a day after 260 out of the company's 300 staff, were made redundant.

The majority of cuts hit ground crew, engineers and flight staff based at Birmingham International Airport.

Ten employees based at Duo's second base in Edinburgh have also been axed.

The remaining workers have been kept on to help with recovering funds for creditors.

Andy Peters, a Deloitte administrator, said: "The statement of affairs will show £14 million of existing creditor claims.

"In addition to that we can expect £5 million claims from passengers who have booked and paid for flights."

A Deloitte spokesman said hundreds of travellers had already called a helpline demanding a refund for their tickets, but the administrators have said it is "uncertain" whether their will be sufficient funds to meet the claims.

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[ajamieson]

Failed airline was flying two-thirds empty (http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=526052004), The Scotsman 8 May
(If prompted for registration, use username [email protected], password capital)

Shame.

BD Regional is definitely talking to LH about MUC but they're not particularly keen as it would probably just make the existing EDI-FRA a bit thinner. Flybe could clean up on GVA (good strong affluent leisure market plus a bit of biz traffic). SAS in Norway are less keen on Scotland than SAS in Sweden, but EDI-OSL could be good.

[GoEDI]

Sources close to Duo said the six European routes from Scotland were "more promising" than the flights from its own base in Birmingham, and that a major new promotional push was in the pipeline before the financial backing fell away. The company had received extra cash and was counting on getting a further £1 million to stay airborne.
The insider said: "Scotland was Duo’s strong point and some of the routes were potentially very lucrative. The Birmingham market had tough competition. It was not the performance of the routes that sank Duo. The fact is you need very deep pockets to run an airline and there wasn’t the financial backing required for the whole operation."



I don't know if the article is good for EDI or not. The title doesn't suggest so, but then the quote above does. :confused:
It spells out that duo were unlucky to go, and I feel it is a shame that they are gone and didn't even make it to summer.
Loads at EDI were improving nicely each month on all their routes, but obviously not fast anough!
A well established airline will make easy money out if duo's routes from EDI.

[kinsman]

Very sorry to hear about Duo. Hope all the staff find jobs ASAP.

As to the situation in the low cost market at the moment all I can say is there are no new stories here. Too many players and a public hunger for lower fares. The result airlines running on ever-tighter margins. The real loosers here apart from the staff will be the public.

Once the war ends fares will rise as the competition falls over. In the mean time more and more passengers will loose money and find themselves stranded as so called low cost operators go bust.

Interesting watching the BBC on Sunday morning pointing to the lack of ATOL bonding for low cost airlines. What they failed to mention is no schedule carrier has any protection for the travelling public; it is a risk you take when you book! The package holiday may be becoming unfashionable but it was always a safe option, as you will always get your money back if the worst happens and you will always be brought home. In short you may not be saving money with DIY packages, you may in fact end up spending a small fortune.

But in defence of low cost operators you have no more protection from cancelled flights or failure of the company booking with any of the major carriers.

[Ninjaman]

Am i missing something here. Why is everybody refering to low cost? Duo was very much a full service operator. In fact it couldn't be any further from low cost if it tried.

[Dash-7 lover]

I see BACX have jumped on the BHX-LYS/NCE and VIE already.

[Buster the Bear]

Fury at £1.4m for Duo airline bosses Jul 8 2004




By Jon Griffin, Evening Mail


Six directors of collapsed Birmingham airline Duo are sitting on a potential nest egg worth nearly £1.4 million - while more than 300 former staff received just hundreds of pounds in compensation.

Meanwhile 500 trade creditors owed around £14 million will receive just 2.5p in the pound.

The financial revelations came today as a creditors meeting was being held in Solihull to examine the collapse of Duo over two months ago, with debts of more than £40 million and only aircraft spares as assets.

A total of 340 staff were laid off while administrators estimate a shortfall of many millions of pounds facing creditors.

Figures revealed in today's creditors report show that six directors hold 892,857 shares worth, at April 30, 2004, £1,390,472.

The report said that all creditors of the group director company, Duo Group, will be repaid.

But Mr Dawson stressed that the payments to directors may be challenged by the creditors.

Meanwhile former chief executive Peter Spencer holds a total of 267,857 shares, valued at more than £400,000.

The financial revelations were set to spark an outcry at today's creditors meeting where the true extent of the financial collapse of Duo was being revealed.

Bill Dawson, administrator with Deloitte, said the directors' shareholdings were almost certainly set to be challenged by creditors.

"There are a number of areas we have to establish whether these transactions are valid or invalid. This is not something which will happen automatically without a challenge," he said.

But Adrian Kibbler, former head of communications, who is owed more than £7,000 by Duo, said: "Staff and creditors will be shocked by these revelations. "It will be an outrage if they receive next to nothing whilst the directors walk away clutching small fortunes."

Administrators have also received 1,500 potential claims from passengers whilst the vast majority of the 52,000 customers owed an average of £100 each are likely to seek redress from their credit card companies via insurance.

Mr Dawson could not explain why, although all staff had been promised shareholdings, no share options had ever been issued to employees.
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