Continued competition in the sector, upward pressures on oil and fuel costs on the barrel is putting some European airlines into extinction.

I had to go back and review a lot of MOL commentary over Q4 and into early this year to validate a few of his forward looking statements on the sector and performance guidance.

Interestingly, Norwegian and SAS comments by MOL, which has further prompted me to re-examine both sets of financial statements and accounts.

Norwegian is in the tank in losses / for cash and chased shareholders for couple of hundred million, their shareholding structure makes an aggressive takeover pretty much impossible.

NEW BASE : TOULOUSE
2 A/C
11 NEW ROUTES
OPENS OCT 2019

ALICANTE 2pw
BREST 3pw
BUDAPEST 2pw
LILLE daily
LUXEMBOURG 3pw
MARSEILLE daily
OUJDA 2pw
PALERMO 2pw
PORTO 3pw.
TANGER 2 pw
VALENCIA 2 pw

New routes and 1 more a/c at marseille
in total 3 based a/c

agadir 2pw
bologna 3pw
copenhagen 2pw
manchester 2pw
milan-bgy 4pw
naples 2pw
ouarzazate 2pw
prague 2pw
sofia 2pw
strasbourg 3pw
tel aviv 3pw
toulouse daily

New routes and 1 more a/c at Bordeaux
in total 3 based a/c

bologna 2pw
brest 3pw
budapest 2pw
lille daily
nador 2pw
naples 2pw
oujda 1pw
palermo 2pw
prague 2pw
strasbourg 3pw

2 new routes from Palma to Budapest and Prague
https://corporate.ryanair.com/news/r...aga/?market=es

New FR route from Manchester-Poitiers, 2 weekly from 5th June 19.

Rumors from Pilot Expo in Berlin: Turin TRN next FR base.

Frankfurt/hhn to palermo

3pw

begins oct 2019

That's a lot of routes..Why is FR suddenly trimming down the WMI base? Where will the 2 planes go?

5 new Routes at BOLOGNA

Bordeaux 2pw
Crotone 3pw
Fuerteventura 1pw
Santander 2pw
Tel-Aviv 2pw

Begins OCT 19

Palermo to Krakow

2pw

begins OCT 19

Lisbon to Memmingen
2pw
Begins 27/10/2019

The situation in Warsaw is complicated. Basically there are three main shareholders, Polish State Airports - PPL (who also own Chopin Airport), the local authorities and the Military as well as one minor shareholder.

Polish State airports has been blocking expansion of the airport since the constitution of the airport means that all shareholders must agree unanimously to a resolution for it to be passed. PPL has been blocking any resolution at expanding the airport or the facilities, against the wishes of the board.

PPL has said it is willing to finance the expansion in the airport, if the other shareholders sell up to them. It is also willing to invest in the airport if they are given 51% of the airport and the unanimous condition is removed. Basically they want to use the unanimous rule to frustrate others when they don't have a majority shareholding, but they want to remove that rule if they do have the majority so nobody can frustrate them - a pretty thinly veiled tactic for all to see.

They then want to stop the airport being a low cost airport and instead turn it into a full service airport that is based on the same pricing that they are charging at the main airport in Warsaw and run it as a duopoly. Many believe this is in order to remove the advantages that Ryanair to have to protect LOT who are being undercut by Ryanair quite substantially. They are now playing the game that if the local authorities do not sell up, the airport might go bankrupt and taxpayers money will be wasted. To date, the local authorities won't sell up as they do not trust PPL at all.

With this in mind, PPL has turned to a Plan B. It has decided to invest in expanding the airport in Radom, recently liquidated, that no airlines fly to as it's unattractive to them and will spend hundreds of millions in upgrading it. After which point it is going to force all charters out of Chopin Airport into Radom and wants to do the same with low cost carriers. It's strategy seems to be that sooner or later Modlin will go bust whilst they frustrate it's expansion plans and block board resolutions. Ryanair will have to move to Radom which will be totally controlled by PPL and this is far less of a threat to LOT than an airport in the Warsaw area would be.

Many view this whole situation as one big protection of LOT and if Modlin going to the wall and spending lots of money upgrading an airport that nobody wants to fly to and forcing low cost carriers and charters there as they're pushed out of Chopin and Modlin is closed needs to happen in order to do that, that is what will have to be done.

PPL don't have full control over Modlin and they don't like it, essentially many believe that the whole situation is designed to either get control or try and ensure it no longer exists - as you can imagine the issue is subject of complaints to the European Union and also illustrates why I believe it is against the interests of consumers of one organisation to have interest in two competiting airports in the same city.

I think EU will come down quite hard on Polish Govt on this. It will be political and not just related to the airport and a requirement to divest its shareholding.

Lots passenger numbers may reach 10 million in 2019 and reality is that for most Poles it is irrelevant as most have never flown on it and likely never will.

Recently there has been an argument that if Polish State Airports does not want to invest in the airport and wants to continue to frustrate any expansion, they should hand over the shares to the parties that do want to, to let them get on with it so all the state money invested in building it is not wasted if it goes to the wall.

PPL's reaction was that they would not be doing so as they are a commercial company so they do not understand why some would consider it money of the state and the only people who would be wasting the states money is the local authorities who will not accept their VERY generous offer of recapitalising the airport in exchange for a majority stake and abolishing the unanimity rule.

The fact they will only allow a majority vote to be binding when they have a majority but disallow it when someone else does, tells you all that you need to know about what kind of situation it is.

If they allow it to get bust it will get interesting as they will seek to allow PPL to acquire it cheaply but that will most definitely fall foul of EU competition law.

Radom Airport was built in 2014 and for years nobody was interested in flying there apart from a few short term and failed routes from various small carriers, it went bankrupt and very shortly after PPL bought it out of liquidation. It's now having hundreds of millions spent on it, to be used as an auxiliary airport for the Warsaw area, where it's been widely speculated that charters and low cost airlines from Chopin will be forced out to. PPL are the only shareholder and it will not be anywhere near as significant competitor for Chopin as Modlin, because a) PPL will control it and B) it's further out.

There's been a number of changes to the rules in Chopin Airport recently, such as voluntarily prohibiting very early departures or late arriving flights, bans on refuelling with passengers onboard and offering financial incentives for those airlines who were transferring passengers, that clearly benefit certain airlines as well as cause issues for others. PPL will tell you that this does not prove that they are favouring anyone, since the same rules apply to each airline. There's also been complaints by airlines of extended wait times for buses and bridges to arrive, being given very distant parking spots among other things.

There's a local political side to this as well, as the area that Modlin is, is not controlled by the ruling party whereas Radom is a big area for the current government, so you know, there's votes to be won here as well.