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Old 21st Aug 2008, 00:29
  #222 (permalink)  
Capvermell
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: United Kingdom
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I have this SAD feeling that this Accident could be the end for Spanair.
Given the already extremely precarious financial state of this airline then it may well be much less able to withstand the sudden downturn in passenger bookings and numbers that will inevitably immediately follow on from an event of this kind. Also a very high percentage of routes operated by Spanair also have competitor services from Iberia (or Click Air on its behalf) and Air Europa thus the ability for passengers to rebook on competitor airlines for domestic flights is higher than on internal domestic flights in many other EU countries. Also many of these competitor flights are not flying anywhere near full (except during these few summer holiday season weeks) but might suddenly become so if no one wants to book with Spanair.

Much will depend on whether the fault for this crash lies with the airline's pilots or its maintenance standards or instead relates to some other hidden catastrophic design failure in the aircraft or its engines, unrelated to poor maintenance or poor piloting, that could have hit any MD82.

If the crash is the result of pilot error or substandard maintenance or other negligence then it will at a minimum be essential to rebrand it as something else. In theory both Iberia and Air Europa could expand their operational activities if Spanair goes in to liquidation to cover most of the routes and acquire a substantial proportion of the existing aircraft to fly them under their colours.
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