Air Lib declared bankrupt!

[Justice Too]

Air Lib will suspend all flights as of midnight February 5, 2003
The meetings with the French ministery of transport were ended at 4:00 am this morning.

Imca investment group wanted to take over Air Lib and wanted to buy 29 Airbus A-319 aircraft for the same price as easyJet paid for them and Airbus refused.

[Aviation Trainer too]

The funny (or sad..) thing is that these IMCA guys have only experience at making money in refinancing bankrupt companies but not at running them profitable... Unbelieveable that the French Media did not pick up on the fact that all airlines.... they own are hardly airlines...

[Orange In Cider]

......but those A319's may well start appearing in ORY in considerable numbers....just painted Orange! It's no secret that eJ have been looking for more ORY slots for a long time now.

[Volume]

Now I understand !

Yesterday morning a Lib Air MD was towed from the gate in TLS to the farest parking position on the airfield, and the planned flight was announced ´cancelled´
At first I thought of technical problems, but no one started any work on the plane.

Sad but logically

[Few Cloudy]

Financial world is speculating that easy will get ORY slots now - shares up to 2.30 from a disastrous 2.05 yesterday...

[ATC Watcher]

I always said : leave the Brits organising domestic air transport in France and leave the French (re)organising British rail. We might then have a reasonable transport system in both countries.:E

[wallabie]

ATC how about let the french reorganize both rail and air travel ?
Air Lib was nothing but window dressing to please the Brussel commission.
Now the slots will be taken over by Easy and Air France who by the way will be " kindly " requested to employ ex Air Lib employees. Easy will keep its mouth shut getting nice Buses deals and enough slots to please Senora Ignacio de Palacio. Who will give a toss about Air Lib in ..........let's say 3 months ? Why didn't the french media pick up on IMCA ????? Because the french media is stupid and barks where the government tells them to and the french governement loves fairy tales too
This Air Lib story is Ansett demise revisited a year later in the exact same conditions. Just replace Solomon and Lews by whatever this Dutch guy's name is and you have it. Blackmailing the french government over jobs, subsidies, twisting Airbus arm to get nice deal over a crappy 19 aircrafts contract. They could have printed the T shirts " I helped put Air Lib back in the sky "

[Aviation Trainer too]

Dear Wallabie

I am glad we have the same perspective on 'non'investors like IMCA and the French Press in General!