Centralwings

[aeulad]

Centralwings are adding flights from Edinburgh to Warsaw in the coming winter season.

Mon, Wed, Fri dep EDI 14:15

Regards

Mike

[airhumberside]

aeulad

Are these additional frequencies?

[honest man]

If you look at their site there only is the three flights

[Stanstedeye]

Centralwings are adding flights from Edinburgh to Warsaw in the coming winter season.
Mon, Wed, Fri dep EDI 14:15
Regards
Mike

Also to STN

[GoEDI]

Are these additional frequencies?

This thread is one year old. WAW is now 5x weekly and Gdansk and Katowice have been added.

[airhumberside]

Thats odd. How come it was on the first page of the forum yesterday?

[daz211]

Having just looked at STN website
I have noticed that centralwings (C0) are to fly
stansted - warsaw and wroclaw this winter
yet another new airline / route for stansted :ok:

[Charlie Roy]

News of STN - WAW with Central Wings came to light over a month ago ;)

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=220407&page=4 (Post #74)

Ya, I see now too on Stansted's site Wroclaw listed as a destination served by Central Wings. Surprising that :confused: because Central Wing's website has no mention of it... Likely to be a mistake on the STN website?

[eu01]

Polish Treasury Ministry is planning to sell Centralwings (the budget orientated subsidiary of the national airline LOT) with one of the planned scenarios being an Initial Public Offering. Ireneusz Dabrowski, Polish deputy treasury minister, said that an IPO for LOT is planned for 2007. The Treasury Ministry would retain a controlling stake in the firm. Following the flotation of LOT, the ministry wants to solve the issue of Centralwings. C0's current strategy is moving into the black at the end of 2008, something that could not be achieved without an injection of capital. "There are offers of investors willing to take over the company, so it might be sold in full," said Dabrowski. The name of a potential investor(s) hasn't been disclosed yet. Personally I don't believe Ryanair could be one of them, nevertheless Mr. Dabrowski has some restraints if it was the case: We should enable any offer made by Ryanair to be rejected, as Centralwings is to compete with the cheap Irish airline". The prospect of privatization of Lot and/or Centralwings is not enthusiastically seen in both firms either. And even the Minister says it might not be possible to make C0's privatization happen before 2008. That, however, could be also too late, as Centralwings' financial shape is poor and LOT results deteriorate as well.

[airhumberside]

Anyone know ere Centralwing's bases are. I guess WAW is one but what about Polish regional airports such as Krakow and Wroclaw - do they have based aircraft/crew or are they served by w patterns?

[antoslaw]

Anyone know ere Centralwing's bases are. I guess WAW is one but what about Polish regional airports such as Krakow and Wroclaw - do they have based aircraft/crew or are they served by w patterns?

Centralwings has 2 B737s based in Wroclaw.

[airhumberside]

Been posted on the Cork thread that Centralwings summer schedule is out on Monday and includes ORK-WAW - any other new routes likely?

[eu01]

Been posted on the Cork thread that Centralwings summer schedule is out on Monday and includes ORK-WAW - any other new routes likely?
Katowice (KTW) - SNN
Gdansk (GDN) - Rome (CIA)

[eu01]

This thread is over a year older again. In 2007 became clear which lcc's are the dominant ones in Central-Eastern Europe. It's not SkyEurope. Neither Centralwings; they are in trouble as well.
Budget airline Centralwings incurred a loss of PLZ 73 million instead of an anticipated loss of PLZ 35 million at the EBIT level in 2007, while in 2006 the loss stood at PLZ 65 million.

"This was to be the last year in the red. We estimated losses at PLZ 35 million. Regretfully, over this period market conditions deteriorated, while costs rose by 13.4%," said Waldemar Królikowski, president of Centralwings. "Stronger companies push out weaker ones, initially from the best routes and then from the market as a whole. This could also be the fate of Centralwings," said the president of the carrier. He went on to say that the firm will not last long without engaging in the consolidation processes, but such decisions will be taken by the owner. The fate of the company will be first dealt with by the firm's supervisory board on Friday and then by LOT's supervisory board on March 4. (PB/WBJ)

1€ = 3.53PLZ
So far, the winners are Wizzair and Ryanair. Wizzair seems to cope very well, in fact its LF's are somewhat better in most cases in comparison to FR. The latter still didn't manage to create a single base in any of the Central-European countries, that gives advantage to Wizz, its CE-located bases help keep costs low.

[Charlie Roy]

"Stronger companies push out weaker ones, initially from the best routes and then from the market as a whole. This could also be the fate of Centralwings," said the president of the carrier.

Well if the president has resigned himself to the fact that their doomed, then there certainly isn't much hope for them at all :(

PS - Recently saw an advertisement in Dutch for Centralwings in Izegem (small town in West Flanders, Belgium) advertising their 3 routes from Lille. More random routes that won't last long before Central chop and change their route map again, or simply go bust.

[eu01]

Right now, Centralwings is at the stage of a massive retreat from... everything. The routes are being dramatically cut, others to commence within two weeks will not be started.

Among others, the reduction will concern the following routes:
* Kraków, Gdansk and Poznan to MAN
* Kraków - DUB
* Kraków - GRO
* Wroclaw - LGW
* Szczecin and Poznan to EDI
* Gdansk - GRO
* Poznan - BVA
* Poznan - AMS
* Gdansk - SNN
* Kraków - Cork
* Warsaw - Lille

An other middle-to-high-cost airline pretending to be LCC in the state of despair right now...

[airhumberside]

Among others, the reduction will concern the following routes:
* Kraków, Gdansk and Poznan to MAN
* Wroclaw - LGW
* Szczecin and Poznan to EDI
* Gdansk - SNN
* Warsaw - Lille
Out of those, in July the following are bookable

MAN-KRK
EDI-Szczecin
LGW-Wroclaw

However the following not in the list are not bookable

MAN-WAW

[toledoashley]

What a fantastic opening for wizz and ryanair to capture the Polish market - would now expect a FR at either Wroclaw or Krakow and more expansion from Wizz at Warsaw, Gdansk, Katowice and Poznan.

[POLISH_EDDIE]

Sadly C0 has got major financial problems right now and doesn't really have a good strategy for the future. The network is not cost-effective with not enough frequencies on many of the routes - mainly due to lack of a/c. They are trying hard to promote themselves, i.e. selling return tix on WAW-DUB route for just 20 quid but it's too late and on most of the routes, their competitiors are just cheaper!
Many experts expect them to go bankrupt within a year. That would mean many new opportunities for Wizzair, Ryanair, Norwegian and Easy Jet. Maybe also return to Polish market of Sky Europe... Though it's not really likely at the moment when they have hubs at VIE and PRG. But I still see a lot of potential for Polish LCC market!!

[eu01]

You know who's smart here?
Wizz Air offers re-routing alternatives to Centralwings passengers.

Wizz Air, the largest low fare – low cost airline based in Central and Eastern Europe announced today that it would provide re-routing alternatives to passengers affected by the decision of Centralwings to unexpectedly discontinue eight of its flights to Poland.
These guys have learned very much (did you notice numerous similarities with FR?) and they'll be the winners.

[adam12345]

Are Centralwings on the way out......
http://www15.centralwings.com/en/50/info.html

Its not looking good..:uhoh:

[eu01]

Are Centralwings on the way out......

Its not looking good..:uhoh:
The agony lasted much longer than one might have expected. But, finally, Centralwings will cease to exist as a low-cost carrier. From mid-September the subsidiary of LOT will operate exclusively the charter flights.

In the coming days C0's online booking system will be dismantled. Some crew of the company is to be taken over by LOT, and much of the administrative staff (several dozen people) will be fired.

This afternoon, the CEO has talked to the staff. The official press conference will be held tomorrow.

[eu01]

And indeed. Most of C0 routes will be discontinued after mid-September, the very last low-cost flights of CentralWings will take place on October 7th (to Lisbon and back to Warsaw). That's it. Some staff out of 400 people will be required to provide the charter operations (these will continue), many can apply for jobs in LOT, but the marketing department guys are becoming redundant. Bye bye, CentralZero (due to the carrier's unreliability some used to call them less politely: CentralSh:mad:)...

By the way. LOT Airlines intend to sell some of its tickets mimicking the LCC rules. The man responsible will be... Tomasz Kulakowski, until last month Ryanair’s Sales & Marketing Manager for Central Europe. Amazing, isn't it?

[thebig C]

So, will LOT be pulling off all Irish routes and leaving them to EI and Re?

[eu01]

So, will LOT be pulling off all Irish routes and leaving them to EI and Re?...or to FR? I have no idea, perhaps somebody who lives in Poland could answer to this question. Anyway, LOT Airlines have to be very careful (and defensive presumably) as their financial status is not satisfactory either.

Speaking about Poland, the retreat of Centralwings is a next heavy blow to the country's second-largest airport, Krakow. Abandonned by no-frills like SkyEurope, Germanwings and (soon) Jet2, not served by WizzAir, being fiddled around by Ryanair... Slower then expected growth has been caused by some delays related to the construction of a new terminal, but above all Krakow-Balice has been far too expensive, probably the most expensive in the entire region. Facing the present failure of one of its main airlines, the airport set up a special committee to examine whether the fares are adequate to the needs and expectations and to create new discount policy. The committee is expected to propose discounts for carriers who ensure the largest number of passengers. But not immediately, it will start next year, they say.

[anna_list]

Does Centralwings have to go down as one of the worst business decisions in our industry in recent times?

When the airline was set up, we were told that they would defend LOT's market share against the LoCos. Instead, they managed to stimulate the market (whilst losing LOT a lot of money) and then hand the market share straight over to their competitors - exactly the opposite to what was intended.

In the case of the British Isles, Centralwings at various times flew to Dublin, Cork, Shannon, Edinburgh, LGW, Stansted, Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham. As a result of this escapade, LOT have now been driven out of these islands with the exception of LHR. That isn't very clever, is it?

I notice that Wizzair have been very quick to grab the Gdansk - Rome and Bologna - Warsaw & Krakow routes. They will of course be delighted.

After the recent LoCo explosion in Poland, SkyEurope closed their Krakow base last year and now Centralwings have ceased to function as a serious competitor. Wizzair and Ryanair are now dominating the Polish market, the latter without having based a single aircraft in the country (yet).

Eu01 is quite right about Krakow. SkyEurope accounted for 15% of KRK traffic last year (0% this year!), Centralwings generated 7% of KRK traffic this year. KRK is now dominated by EasyJet (23% of traffic - the only Polish airport where they have made an impact) and Ryanair (20% of traffic). It is clear that KRK will need to get their costs right if they are to attract any growth at all.

[wawkrk]

Centralwings did not have much of a chance being run by an old communist style management system within LOT.
I cannot also see LOT themselves surviving in their present state.
With regard to Krakow Balice words fail me. The place is being run by incompetent idiots along with their equally useless relatives as nepotism is rife and still alive and well throughout Poland.
Two years to build a huge new executive office building with a small part disguised as the Domestic Terminal. Four check-in desks for LOT but only one in use because no demand.
Meanwhile the International Terminal is like a cattle market.
No International Departure lounge.Passengers are held in glass pens at the gates.
There is only one full size carousel that can be used for all flights.
The airport website used to brag about the wonderful terminal being capable of handling 1.75m pax. then proceeded to tell you they had achieved 3m pax.
On the landside they blocked out all the windows in the Café viewing area.
They opened a new restaurant called the Panorama but without any windows and very dark. Nobody uses it.
Brand new Business Lounge with about 20 plastic seats and 3 girls behind the desk doing what I don’t know.
Wizzair pulled out because of extortionate charges and primitive facilities.
I believe only CAT1 ILS in this foggy hilly region.
Wizz moved to Katowice and laid on a bus service to KRK.
Charter flights were never shown on website arrivals board probably because these are considered low class. Also I did hear that the Management had restricted the number of charter flights for some reason.
Katowice Airport continues to grow quickly and is now almost level with KRK.
The facilities are very good but unfortunately Katowice is an industrial area but reasonably close to Krakow so they are taking business away.
I could go on and on.
wawkrk

[thebig C]

Wawkrk......that sounds dreadful! Its almost like they went to the same school of management as the people in the Dublin Airport Authority!:ok: What you say is sad because Krokow has so much potential....both airport and city.

As for LOT, I feel they would be stupid no to try re-entering the Irish market. Sure, they would be slightly more expensive, but I actually know many Polish people based in Ireland who hate Ryanair with a passion. Given the choice, even for nationalistic reasons they might fly with their national airline. In fact, I several know Czechs based in Dublin who always go CSA despite it being far from the most affordable option.:)

[thebig C]

...or to FR?

Sorry, I did mean Fr:\.......Re would be doing very well to get there in their ATRs!......Unless they have plans they are not telling us:)

[Atlantean1963]

Just an observation - flew back from Warsaw last night on a 737-400 with the Centralwings rear body / tail livery, but with LOT brand markings at the front of the plane.

And I really hope the chap in the seat behind me, who coughed, sniffed and sneezed over the back of my head for two hours and twenty minutes feels better this morning - because I'm certainly coming down with something! :(

Best Regards,

Atlantean.

[thebig C]

I think I sat in front of him one time as well!:ok:

[davidjohnson6]

I know there was publicity saying the airline would finish flying at the end of September - but the website still seems to list routes that it flies.

Have all flights under the C0 code completely stopped, or are there some flights still operating ? If flights are still operating, does anyone know the plan when scheduled C0 flights really do finish ?

[A319-100]

I was in Krakow yesterday 13/10 and there was a central wings aircraft cleared to land as we were at the holding point. it had a central wings call sign and branding. :confused::confused:

[en2r]

Have all flights under the C0 code completely stopped, or are there some flights still operating ? If flights are still operating, does anyone know the plan when scheduled C0 flights really do finish ?
As far as I know Centralwings have ceased all scheduled flights. However they continue to operate a number of charter flights from Poland to sun destinations. Centralwings still exists, just they have changed from being a scheduled airline to being a charter airline.

[kooshing]

Centralwings has decided to reduce number of its pilots by 30 (number includes mostly FOs but also some CPTs). Few CPTs are being downgraded to FO position. B737s (most probably 3) will go back to LOT. Looks like the company is slowly dying or is being killed by its mother... Really sad news...