Poland's OLT Express suspends flights

[hetfield]

Another LOCO bites the dust.....

Poland's OLT Express suspends flights (http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/polands-olt-express-suspends-flights-374815/)

[B737NG]

Is that the same OLT who wants to buy the stricken Contactair in Germany?

One of the first European Loco structured Operator was Debonair with F50´s and got bitten in Oct. 1999. About the time when RYR was due to implement the NG´s. Easyjet was rising on the horizon......

Many traditional Airline Managers underestimated the effect that LOCO has. Counteracted too late and now market forces are demanding the toll.

There are not too many real LOCO structured operations out. Some name themselves that way and just offer low fares to compete but are not lean on the fixed costs, they will follow that path.

The glory times in many industries are down the drain, Aviation is just one of them. It is hypocrisy, global warming, CO2 emmission, enviornmental protection = needed but the general public does not care, they just travel, the cheaper the better. Who pays the price later? who cares.....majority not.

It cannot be healthy for any Gross National Product to search for the bottom target. That price is huge, the cheaper the better.

[LLuCCiFeR]

Already reported here: http://www.pprune.org/terms-endearment/490393-olt.html

[hetfield]

Is that the same OLT who wants to buy the stricken Contactair in Germany?They already did with 4th of July, starting september.

Nevertheless OLT X Poland is not the same company as OLT X Germany, but both belong to Investor Amber Gold. According media Amber Gold wants to quit their airline activities and sell OLT X Germany.

[Vivabeaver]

DEBONAIR operated BAe146 and B737,300 on its demise the F50 was operated by DenimAir on sub lease during 1999.Debonair was a C**P company with great crews good fun while it lasted.

[beached]

There is a little more information emerging. OLT REGIONAL has sadly been declared bankrupt, ie the ATR's. The A320 arm - OLT EXPRESS is still operating, busy doing ACMI and charter flights. There is a very optimistic mood in the office that OLT EXPRESS can be quickly reconfigured to operate independently of parent company funding.

[konradeck]

Unfortunately that's no longer correct...
Both OLT companies (OLT Express Poland and OLT Express Regional) have gone bankrupt, all aircraft were returned to lessors except of 1 or 2 which were arrested by airports to secure payments.

Long story short: A (suspected) pyramid-style financial company AmberGold (para-banking, not supervised by Polish Financial Supervision Authority as it had no banking-licence) purchased struggling OLT company and tried to build a low-cost regional airline, flying olny local routes with A319/320 with 50% of seats in 99 PLN fare (~25 EUR, taxes included). For such price they had provided full catering and all advantages of Full-price airlines. Moreover they spent on Marketing more than most of FMCG companies.

When PFSA started to take a closer look into AmberGold and started warning actions to the customers and bank market, OLT was cut-off from the wide stream of money from AG and Card Providers, who raised their guarantees. This caused ATR lessor to recall his machines and caused the domino-effect.

It now looks like a nice fraud action from AmberGold to cover their actions...

[Golf-Sierra]

If it's too good to be true then it probably is.

Building a domestic airline network in Poland is a long term investment. You need to alter the way people think. When people want to get from A to B their first thought has to be - I'll fly. Business people have to build their businesses around the ability to fly. People have to schedule their holidays around the ability to fly. People have to search for jobs in different cities based on the ability to commute regularly by plane.

Dumping price promotions will attract a lot of curious people. But that, of course, is not sustainable.

Anyway - the future for Poland is - IMHO - rail anyway. Much like France or Germany.

[FougaMagister]

You're probably right that rail is the future in Poland, bearing in mind country size, the location of respective urban centres and the relative lack of mountains (except in the very South). But creating a large high-speed rail network took decades in France and Germany. At the moment, most transport investment in Poland is in motorway infrastructure. So domestic air routes still have a few more years ahead of them yet...

Incidentally, since OLT Express went under, LOT/EuroLOT have seriously increased some of their fares (by up to 50%, plus a new "booking fee"). Surprise, surprise...

Cheers :cool:

[ZimmerFly]

Looks like Konradek is correct....

Google translation from Polish

He was a swindler and bankrupt, is a millionaire. The interests of the mysterious owner of the OLT Express and Amber Gold

Marcin Plichta is 28. Even in 2008 under the name Stefanski liable to trial for misappropriation of over 170 thousand. He was sentenced to one year and 10 months imprisonment, suspended for two years. Today is investing tens of millions of gold, among others the airline OLT Express, which hit (in fact przebojowymi prices) are raking in more and more of the aerial part of the market in Poland.
By? oszustem i bankrutem, jest milionerem. Interesy tajemniczego w?a?ciciela OLT Express i Amber Gold | NaTemat.pl (http://natemat.pl/16341,byl-oszustem-i-bankrutem-jest-milionerem-interesy-tajemniczego-wlasciciela-olt-express-i-amber-gold)

[Airbus_a321]

,,,and the Polish CAA, closed all eyes and ears. :ugh:
They did'nt know, of course, anything.
Remind me of the picture of the 3 monkees. What a country:{

[FougaMagister]

Correct. This raises a number of questions about the level of supervision (or lack of) by the Polish CAA. Looks like they granted an AOC without asking too many questions, or looking too deep into the financing side of OLT Express. Worrying...

Cheers :cool:

[Jabulani]

I flew for them, idiots all over the place, no idea how to operate an airline, even the polish employees thought that it was only money laundry. Not even a small attempt to earn money.

Mistakes over mistakes, horroble shedules, not even emergency procedures publishes, no ID cards for cabin crew even after months of operation.

My first imppression was: wondering how long it will last....

Here is the result....

[hetfield]

AMBER GOLD is now bankrupt. 7.000 Investors lost 20 million Euros, most probably.

Consultant of AMBER GOLD was Michal Tusk, son of Polands PM Donald Tusk.

Any questions?

Polens Premier Tusk wegen Geschäften seines Sohnes unter Druck - SPIEGEL ONLINE (http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/polens-premier-tusk-wegen-geschaeften-seines-sohnes-unter-druck-a-851499.html)

[BEagle]

A pity that the friendly Ostfriesische Lufttransport seems to have bitten the dust.

Like Hahn Air and Intersky, they operated a useful network of regional business flights. Fond memories of their services!

[hetfield]

Why has this thread been shiftet?

Too much of political force?

:ugh:

[FougaMagister]

OLT Express collapse leaves limited gap in the Polish market | CAPA - Centre for Aviation (http://centreforaviation.com/analysis/olt-express-collapse-leaves-limited-gap-in-the-polish-market-81646)

Cheers :cool:

[jabird]

Anyway - the future for Poland is - IMHO - rail anyway. Much like France or Germany.

Except, as said above, Poland has no "proper" high speed, just the token "CMK Trunk Line". In fact, for now, high speed plans are on hold anyway.

I remember a Sky Europe presentation not so long ago where they came up with a key statistic "the average Brit passenger flies four times a year, the average Pole flies once every four years". Some Polish cities are close to each other and well connected by train, but even a relatively short looking journey like POZ-SZZ is still the best part of four hours.

Still plenty of opportunity to link those corners together, perhaps starting with a young commuter jet fleet and adding capacity as demand grows.

[FougaMagister]

Correct. However, IMHO the shorter/transversal domestic routes within Poland can only be done at a profit with turboprops - ATR42/72 or Dash 8Q400. For the longer/larger routes, a young commuter jet fleet such as E-170/175/190 fits the bill. Trouble is (for any competition) that this is precisely LOT and EuroLOT's fleet makeup...

But if Wizzair or Ryanair look hard enough, they may find some profitable domestic routes (to/from Modlin, Gdansk, Szczecin, Wroclaw or Krakow for instance) - maybe as a W-pattern.

Granted, Poles do not yet fly as much as Western Europeans, but for the right price they will switch from the inconvenient (and slow) local rail network.

Cheers :cool:

[jabird]

Granted, Poles do not yet fly as much as Western Europeans, but for the right price they will switch from the inconvenient (and slow) local rail network.

Of course they will! The question is whether airlines can pre-empt this demand, or whether we wait for (costa) Lot to evolve slowly. Sorry, that was one of MOL's puns, but it has a lot of truth to it.

Ryanair aren't that big on domestics, I presume because they don't see so much opportunity for ancilliaries, especially at the destination end?

Lublin comes on stream later this year too, tucked away in the far south east corner, so there have to be some good opportunities. However, would the domestic routes be best served from Modlin, or from Chopin, where proximity to city centre is more of an issue? SZZ for one is miles from town too!

[FougaMagister]

Ryanair wouldn't use Warsaw-Okecie (Frederic Chopin) as a destination. Remember, they pulled out (as did some other LCCs) when airport authorities refused a rebate after they closed the low-cost Etiuda terminal (or more accurately, hangar...) Wizzair have WAW as an alternate to WMI.

A problem with Modlin is the absence of ILS (or RNAV) approach. Come autumn/winter, FR and W6 will be struggling with the VOR approach minima in Modlin. Not sure that an ILS is on the cards there. Expect diversions...

From Airline, Airport and Aviation Route News & Analysis | anna.aero (http://www.anna.aero) :

eurolot, the state-owned Polish regional airline, launched operation on the 440-kilometre domestic route from Katowice (KTW) to Gdańsk (GDN) on 3 September. Services on the south to north routing are now offered with six weekly frequencies and operated with ATR 72s. There is no competition on the route, however, it was previously operated first by Jetair and then by its successor, OLT Express. Following the latter’s demise, services on the route were discontinued in late July. The new service comes as second former OLT Express route to be taken up by eurolot, after flights from Kraków to Poznań were inaugurated two weeks ago.

Cheers :cool:

[bavarian-buddy]

Monday night the rest of OLT Express also ceased operation:
OLT Express Germany ceases operations | ATWOnline (http://atwonline.com/airline-finance-data/news/olt-express-germany-ceases-operations-0128)
:sad:
Now 3 airlines died within one year in Germany. Good night...