VBird Ceased operating ?

[GOLF-INDIA BRAVO]

I have been told that they ceased operating at midnight last night can anyboy through any light on this

Gold India Bravo

[willywick]

Looks like it http://nowaviation.com/content/view/126// plenty of reports suggesting they are no more. Not very surprising though seeing that they had problems paying some of their bills recently (notably to EUjet)

WW

[jabird]

Website still live, but got this when I tried searching for a flight (MAN to NRN):

Sorry. There are no flights available or the flights are sold out going out between
Sun, 07 Nov 04 and Tue, 09 Nov 04

"V-Bird operates a daily flight from Manchester to Niederrhein Airport.
Today\'s flight has been cancelled by the airline.

Manchester Airport is aware an aviation website has alleged the airline has ceased operations. However, the airport has not been informed that this is the case and is therefore not in a position to confirm or deny this allegation.

Which website might they be referring to, I wonder?

[Montana Air]

Yes, VBird ceased operations today in the morning. In the meantime the ILFC leased A320 left NRN airport obviously to SNN:

Departure times of former VBird Airbusses (lsd fr ILFC) from NRN to (most likely) SNN:

PH-VAD dep 1033lt
PH-VAE dep 1037lt
PH-VAC dep 1039lt

Unfortunately neither the V-Bird Homepage nor the Airports homepage give any information on the shutdown of operation.

Germanwings has quickly reacted and offers special prices for passengers holding a V-Bird booking confirmation on routes served to/frm CGN.

Last hope for VBird where talks with the Exel Aviation Group (IMCA) for a possible takeover - last night Exel decided to purchase Dutchbird and not V-Bird.

With the dissapearence of V-Bird it also means tough times for NRN airport to come - just having a few flights of Ryanair makes it economically impossible to run a full airport operation. Also there are indications that the airport is financially tight up with V-Bird having common owners.

[Scottie Dog]

News pages on Niederrhein airport website do confirm that V-bird ceased trading at 0430 this morning.

Only in German I'm afraid

http://www.airportniederrhein.de/international/Airport_Niederrhein.php?sprache=englisch

Scottie Dog

[Nightrider]

This is the translation of above mentioned site:

V Bird stops all flights until further notice
Dutch low-cost operator unded with immediate effect

At 04:30 this morning the Dutch low-cost operator V Bird decided to stop flight operations.

A passenger hotline will be made available during the morning to provide further details.

On Friday afternoon, 8th Oct 2004, the management will be available at the administration offices located at V BIRD Verwaltung,Horsterweg 18a, NL-6199 AC Maastricht Airport to explain the facts to the media.

The announced press conference has been postponed to an undisclosed timing later in the afternoon. Further information will follow.

(Author: V Bird)

The Airport Düsseldorf - Weeze
provides a hotline under following numbers:

02837-66 61 11 und 0221-96 37 28 55

[Avman]

Very sorry to see them go but not unexpected. I flew V Bird and let me tell you the product was GOOD for an LCC. I especially liked the option to select one's seat upon making one's reservation. The real problem was the NRN location. Not the easiest place to get to unfortunately. As much as I wanted to support V Bird I couldn't face the 90 min drive v 55 mins drive to DUS or BRU. My sympathies to all at V Bird.

[Pointer]

Saw on Dutch forum Airwork;

All Busses have been 'trucked' back to Canada. No craft left. This might be part of major Dutch shake-up on charter/LCC market.
DutchBird has been taken over by HollandExel, seems that there wil be fewer employers on the dutch market.

Pointer :E

[Bus429]

Apparently, they have had several close calls and this one was precipitated by several factors. We heard at 2000 UTC and were surprised that flights were still despatched last night.

By 0900 UTC this morning, NRN was a bit of a ghost town.

We heard that VBIRD staff were told (several times) that a saviour was in the wings and that it was down to fine print. Looks like upper management were stalling. Shame, the product was good, the crews were very nice.

One of their office staff told me he had not been paid for two months.

[Phoenix_X]

The management was not stalling, it really was close to finishing the deal....

And then Excel bought DutchBird. Likely because they wanted the AMS nightslots and DutchBird was close (very close) to signing another deal. So they decided to take DutchBird, as the option to wait for their bankruptcy was now no longer available.

DutchBird is to continue it's operations mainly unchanged, and under that name for one year. This is by contract. After that, it's anyone's guess.

As for V-Bird, I wish all people there all the luck in the world. They're a great bunch of people who were delivering a good product. Unfortunately not enough people knew.

[Arkroyal]

I heard a rumour at MAN yesterday that there was a management argument for/against getting out the snow ploughs to impound the NDN aircraft.

They didn't, and now have nothing to ransom for the close on £1m owed.