Originally Posted by
brian_dromey
I really wonder what went wrong at Primera.
13 years of successful charter flying and suddenly the decide to double the size of the airline to operate transatlantic routes.
The new aircraft were late arriving, so ratty replacements were hastily found at great expense.
New aircraft kept coming thick and fast, only the roster of new routes grew faster - but revenue from the fantasy route network couldn’t sustain the winter.
The A321NEO has been chosen by airlines like EI and TP for similar routes, EI and the US3 have been operating the 757 on these routes for year, so the model can work. Globespan had similar rapid expansion, high hopes and dramatic implosion.
I suppose my question is weither the long haul LCC model doesn’t work, or if it was a case of overly ambitious timelines and financial strain stretching that caused their doom. In short, would they have been OK if the A321s had been delivered on-time?
Among other things too, after the first month or two, crews (both flight and cabin) were becoming increasingly fatigued because of the roster patterns. This led to a lot of sickness and tired crew, it even caused some to leave, leaving flights without crew and often cancelled or significantly delayed. This was also the reason for the 737 via KEF to EWR, because of lack of flight deck.
As mentioned before, this caused a dramatic rush for cabin crew recruitment with several new courses being pushed through per month which I guess added to the bill.
Feel for the souls in training at the time of collapse, a lot of them had left airlines like EK and BA to join.
Glad Andri Ingolfsson managed to save himself and his travel agencies though, the Icelandic Andrew Swaffield.