Another difference between SkyEurope and WIZZ was, that WIZZ had a strategy that worked out, done by a professional management. Wizz was, like SkyEurope, also a new startup company, low-cost, and from Central Europe. I don't even think that the Airbusses gave them a signifficant head-start over Sky's classic Threesevens.
Let some Wizz-guys elaborate further on that, I don't know much about them.
SkyEurope's strategy was to go by "try-and-error", sometimes changing their plans from black to white within only a few months. Many of their management were either just plain incompetent, or they over-estimated themselves and the company's strength (for the sake of doubt, let's call that "inexperienced", and not "daydreamers"). Instead of develloping their own market-segment and advantages where they hardly had any competition, they chose to attack their competitors. As if they had stood any chance against Ryanair and the like. Just as Bubba already said.
Other things were self-made problems. For example, the installation of Espresso-Machines in their new aircraft; ridiculously expensive, totally useless, and quietly removed again - the investment gone to waste, nobody responsible.
Or ridiculous investments of millions into one particular base. Re-locating employees sometimes by blackmail, sometimes by promises; spending on advertising and infrastructure - then closing the base down again just a year later. They also opened their own ground-handling company on one occasion, so they bought seccond-hand junk from different airports throughout western Europe. Most of this equipment never actually worked, but stood around on the airport for a few months - airstairs, generators, trucks and vehicles, rusting and rotting away under the snow, rain and sunlight. Until that base was also closed down a year or so later.
Or operating flights from Vienna to Innsbruck, advertising themselves as Central Europe's first low-cost carrier on a domestic route in Austria. Guess why!
SkyEurope had several good chances in the beginning. And for a few years, it even looked quite prosperous, as they received more and more aircraft and the load-factors increased year by year. They were getting popular and enjoyed good feed-back from passengers (according to Skytrax). Many minor problems, like on-time-performance or old aircraft interior, were generously forgiven, passengers praised the free coffee and the smiling Cabin Attendants instead. Newspapers and aviation magazines were quite welcoming towards the new startup-company.
When they started replacing the old "classics" with new "NGs", went on the stock-market and got a new management, things went visibly downhill. Nobody knows about the true status of the airline previously, but from that moment everybody could see that things were not going well. SkyEurope failed to expand at the right time, and wasted too much time and money on ideas that weren't thought through properly, had internal fights for competence, and so gradually lost ground to everyone else, including Wizz.
Looking at the shares: I sold mine long ago, at 20% of what I had paid for them in the first place - which was probably a wise decision, compared to their value now.
SkyEuropes end now is not unexpected or surprising. It came slowly and gradually. In fact, most of us expected this to happen years ago.
Funny how everybody noticed it, except for those being responsible.
Johnnychips: It's true that, at the moment, passengers don't really need to worry about their flights. CAP 11 means also that the company is now protected against their planes being seized. Guys like Peterpaul are probably relieved that they can walk into their bank again, without fear of having their credit-card being confiscated by the teller.
However, it just gives some gratuity-time. Unless Skyeurope now really gets many major improvements that convince, it will not change a thing. And "major improvements" this time doesn't mean just to change some managers, cancelling the free coffee for pilots, and closing one or two routes.
They would now need a complete restructuring, with very painful consequences (looking at the history of companies like Delta or United, who each had to lay off more than 40% of their employees).
But for a while now, things will drag on.