SkyEurope out of bussines`
 

Some more jobless B737 drivers

More Here.
 

More here..........

Low-price airline SkyEurope goes under

(AFP) – 6 hours ago

VIENNA — Slovak-based low-cost airline SkyEurope, already in bankruptcy protection, threw in the towel and cancelled all its flights, mostly from Bratislava, Prague and Paris.

SkyEurope, listed on the Vienna stock exchange, said in a statement that thousands of passengers were stranded at different European airports.

Earlier Monday the airline had cancelled all afternoon flights from Bratislava and all flights as of Tuesday from Prague.

The Ruzyne Prague airport said Monday it would halt all SkyEurope's flights as of Tuesday after the airline failed to pay its debts, the airport spokeswoman Eva Krejci told AFP.

The Vienna airport halted SkyEurope's flights in mid-August for the same reason.

The airline said in July it had found an investor who would rescue the struggling low-cost carrier that entered bankruptcy protection in June.

The Austrian group FOCUS Equity was supposed to invest 16.5 million euros (23.34 million dollars) in the airline, conditional on a successful restructuring process.

The company, set up in 2001 by mainly Austrian investors, launched ticket sales for the winter season in July after adding two new Boeing 737-300 aircraft to its fleet.

The carrier announced earlier this year that its business had been badly hit by the global economic slump and that it had had to reduce its fleet to just five planes from the 15 Boeing 737s it operated in late 2008.

SkyEurope, with bases in Bratislava, Vienna, Prague and the eastern Slovak city of Kosice, never posted a profit in the six years of its existence.

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

Good luck to everybody looking for new employment!

No surprises here..
 

..but still very sad news for employees. Recently banned from Vienna and Prague because of outstanding accounts.... and six 737s recently repossessed IIRC. Good luck to all. bm

Welcome guys and gals to the unemployment queue! What a disaster!

How many pilot may we expect to be unemployed?

A wee bird told me 40+..

more like a hundred....
Fos about 500 to 3000 on type
Capts about 2000 to 8000 on type
Many JAR licence holders.(CZ,UK,FR,NL,SP,SWE...):sad:

So, they never paid you guys for a year and then left you stranded. This is the typical world of today's airlines. From what I understand, the pilots who didn't see this one coming are a bit naive. I'm sorry that it happened, really! I now it sucks, but there is a difference between negative and being naively optimistic. I hope you guys can do the battle in the Slovak courts to get your money from past salaries. :hmm:

Thats tough!

www.aviationjobsearch.com Join up to get email alerts. (I start next week as a direct result of one such email)

www.flightdeckrecruitment.com As above but a small charge. Worth it though as they get access to jobs not yet openly available

www.flightglobal.com

These will give you links to all the recruitment agencies own sites.

Finally, have faith!

Good Luck!!!!! :ok:

"Winter arrives early"
 

We're barely hours past August and the leaves have started to fall.

Forget any green shoots; if they show up the icy wind will soon get them.

I wish it weren't so but...:eek:

While losing their job is bad for Sky Europe pilots, the way SkyEurope was allowed to operate for way too long is a shame.

Air Operator Certificate legislation should theoretically ensure that Airlines are not allowed to operate unless they have sufficient funds to maintain their operation.

It is very doubtful if the Slovak authority followed the rules. Sky Europe must have been "scratching together" the money for day-to-day operation for at least weeks, if not months. It was only a few weeks ago that the Slovak authority renewed (extended?) their certificate, thus allowing Sky Europe to sell tickets for the winter schedule which probably generated cash to continue operations for a few weeks.

After moving operations from VIE to BTS pax inconvenienced by the change were promised free or extremely cheap extra flights..... promises which could only have been made good through a miracle.

Sky Europe founders and subsequent management have been very good in "sharing the dream" of a new Eastern European LCC. The original founders managed to make a profit by selling their shares to investment funds ignorant of the business.

Sky Europe has not made a profit in all of it's history. It's price-dumping financed by future pensioners and other investors has helped to reduce ticket prices ex VIE and has taken it's toll on Austrian Airlines' (and maybe FlyNiki's) business.

It's always a shame to see an airline go bust. All the best to all drivers from Sky. It's not in our favor but the market takes inevitably it's toll. Hope you guys find a new job quickly enough.
Cheers :ok:

a handful of the pilots left a few months ago and joined ryanair in anticipation. they are just filtering onto the line now. hope their collegues find work too

going through difficult financial times ,safety can be compromised .
good job on keeping your pax safe ,and doing your jobs in what i believe must have been troubled times for you and your families.

best of luck .

To those now unemployed - I wish you the best of luck in regaining employment, I've personally flown with a few of your Capts who'd jumped ship over here (as previously mentioned) and if you're anything like them, you'll have no problem finding something out there somewhere :ok:

However, to SkyEurope itself... GOOD RIDDANCE.

You're joking, right? You wish. Slovak courts and fairness/efficiency??
It's been a while since Ryanair put 'Bye Bye SkyEurope' on some of their B737s, though.

Another airline out of business...... sigh!!:sad:

Hmmm, Transparency International corruption index should take care of this idea.

They seemed to do quite well when they built up a fleet of quite adequate mid-life 737s, which have suited many new carriers across the old Eastern Europe, and continue to do so.

Somebody along the road then somehow managed to sell them a replacement fleet of 16 brand-new 737-700s, delivered all at once over 2 years 2006-7, which at a current price of about $65m each is a new capital cost of around $1 billion. However much you frame the financing and present any resulting "economies", this is a capital cost that ultimately has to be paid for out of fares. What a way to run a business. Ryanair, as a contrast, operated for many years with secondhand aircraft and then built up a new fleet gradually. Are Boeing's sales team proud of this one ?