FlyMe 2006
Yes, Cyrano, they did a very bad job with communication last year.
Thank you for the good wishes - I'll just try to put last year in perspective:
It is wrong to announce: we are buying an airline when you only are thinking about it.
It was probably good that they didn't buy Astraeus and/or Lithuanian.
The Sterling story was as far as I got it something the Icelandic guys wanted, and there was a conflict about that with Christer Ager-Hanssen (Cognition), the other big investor in FlyMe. It resulted in the Icelandic guys pulling out, and then Porter (Tesco, CSS) coming in.
Which was probably good. But the way all this was communicated was confusing, and made a chaotic impression.
The swedish media did everything to make that impression even worse...
The GSS project is on the same level as Lithuanian and Astraeus were: it is considered, but no decision is made, which is understandable to me. As far as I know, it was again the media that came out with the story that FlyMe would start a 747 passenger operation, I don't know of any official public FlyMe statement to that effect. Officially it was only said that FlyMe Europe (not the Airline FlyMe Sverige AB) could be buying a stake in CSS.
And it is normal that it takes time to collect all the information to make such a decision, and sometimes it is better to wait a little longer, until one knows more about certain factors.
I believe FlyMe can make it, specially because it is offering what the public in Sweden wants: direct line flights to their favorite destinations at a low price. But i guess by mid-summer there have to be signs, that profitability is possible, otherwise it'll become hard...