Kuwait Airways feeling the pinch

[newswatcher]

From the BBC:

"Parliament in Kuwait has blocked the annual budget of Kuwait Airways amid predictions of further financial losses.

The airline has prediced a deficit of more than $100m for the current financial year, which started in April.

Nineteen members of parliament voted for the budget, well short of the necessary 32.

One member, Jamal al-Omar, told parliament that the country was paying more than $3m from the state budget every week to cover the shortfalls of the airline, and something must be done to stop it.

The airline operates a fleet of 15 Airbus and two Boeing 777 aircraft.

It has suffered from severe cash flow problems since the seven-month Iraqi occupation of Kuwait."

[6000PIC]

Someday, THE OIL WILL RUN OUT, and carriers like this will either die and go away,or die and go away.They could start NOW to become fiscally responsible and probably succeed, but then again, we can`t run airplanes without fuel now could we ?
A good start would be regional jets, doing away with the multitude of types operated,( B747,MD80,A340,A320,A310,A300,B777...)and generally thinking beyond the rise of the next moon. - what a joke. Imagine the waste in parts stores alone.

[faheel]

The main problem with KAC is that the place is run like a big flying club.
No one claims or admits resposibility for anything that happens there.
The guys at the top have their fingers in the till ,whilst the drivers and cabin crew are just generally screwed.
Allowances cut back, overnights are min rest ,pay to park your car in the staff carpark, the whole package is going down the toilet.
No pay rise since the Gulf War for the expats what do they expect?
All their traffic is low yield , mainly Indian Sub continent to the States .
Its cheaper to buy a ticket from Delhi to New York then Kuwait London.

[ex-expat]

Having worked at Kuwait Airways I can attest that as long as the locals run the airline it will only ever be a public utility and will never make money in the same sense that BA or UA does. Perhaps this is OK, they seem to have a lot of money to throw at the airline but the fleet plan of, "one of each," was just a way to pay off all the idiot brother inlaws who manage the place. Buy an airbus and get a free house in the south of France.

[Kerosene Kraut]

Sounds a bit harsh does it?
Why not try things a little more Emirate's style? Might even work with low yield pax. Heard they're British managed.

[Rabbit]

How true these comments are.

While the operation is run by politically appointed incompetents who are appointed because of who they are and not what they are there is little chance the operation will improve.

Even the current voices in parliament will have little effect as "waster" will move in and quiet them because too many important people have their hand in the till.

Too many types, insufficient operations staff, too many irrevelent staff etc. etc. and the list goes on and on. Pity when the Company has all the basic infrastructure and destinations to be a good operation.

If you pay peanuts you get monkeys; this generally applies to all of operations and when you consider the apparent world shortage in operational staff it would not surprise me to see a mass exodus.

Pity as it was a good place to work a few years ago