Failed Airlines

[pppdrive]

For those of you (like me) who just love working for Airlines and generally Flying as much as you can, I’ve always kept details of every flight I’ve been on. So far I’ve flown on 46 Airlines but what really surprised me is that out of those 46, 31 are no longer operating. Now I realise there’ll be many people who will have flown on many more Airlines than I have, but I’d be interested to see if they have as big a percentage of ‘failed’ airlines amongst them.

The Airlines that I've flown on that have ceased operating are;

Air Ferry (LK), BKS (BK), British Eagle (EG), Trans Union (UO), Channel Airways (CW), Air Spain (JA), BUA (BR), Monarch (OM), Sykways Coach Air (SX), BOAC (BA), Ansett-ANA & Ansett (AN), TAA (TN), Pan-Am (PA), British Caledonian (BR), Air Bridge (AK), Aer Mediterranean (BQ), Britannia (BY) Altair (SM), Air Europe (AE), Executive Air (EX), Sunstate OF, Bundy Air Chrt (??), Flight West (YC), Majestic (HR), Spanair (JK), Onurair (ONY), Flybe (BE), Manx2 (NM), Virgin Aust Mk1 (VA), Citywing (NM/VAA), Tigerair (TT). Out of these I’ve actually worked for 8 of them.

Perhaps I'm a jinx as both a passenger and employee .
Paul.

[Asturias56]

Its easier to list the ones that have survived - when you see PanAm and TWA on the list you realise just how hard it is to keep an airline going

[davidjohnson6]

Airlines I've flown... I think they have all ceased public commercial passenger flights. I exclude cases where names change, or there is some sort of bankruptcy-phoenix

Adria Airways -JP, AeroPeru - AP, Aerro Direkt, Aigle Azur - ZI, Air Berlin - AB, Air Italy - IG, Air Leap - FL, Air Moldova - 9U, Air Ocean, Air UK, Air Vallee - VK, Airwing, Alitalia - AZ, Alitalia Cityliner - AZ, Anisec - VK, Atlas Global - KK, Atlas Global Ukraine - UH, Austral - AR, Avies - U3, Azur Air Ukraine - QU, Bees - 7B, Belair - 4T, Bergen Air Transport, Blue Air - 0B, Blue Panorama - BV, Blue1, bmi - BD, bmi Regional, bmibaby - WW, BWIA - BW, Cimber, Cobaltair - CO, Comair, Cyprus Airways - CY, Darwin - F7, Ernest Air - EG, Estonian Air - OV, European Coastal - CC/WL, Eurowings Europe (Austria), FLM Aviation, Flybe v1 + v2, Flybe Finland, FlyBosnia - 6W, FlyCompass - F6, Flyr - FS, FlyViking - VF, GB Airways, Germania - ST, Germanwings - 4U, Gowair - PU, Great Dane - DW, Gullivair - G2, Hahn Air - HR, Hex Air - UD, IZair, Jet Airways - 9W, Jet Time, Jetlite - S2, Joon, Jota Aviation, Kingfisher - IT, Ladeco, Laudamotion, Leisure One Fly, Links Air, Lipican Aer, Luftfahrgesellschaft Walter, Lyddair, Malta Med Air - MT, Meridiana - IG, Miami Air, Minoan Air, Mistral Air, Monarch - ZB, Montenegro Air - YM, MyWay - MJ, Naysa - NT, NextJet - 2N, Niki - HG, Odesa State Air - 5K, OLT Express, One Airways - OX, Orange2Fly, Primera Air Scandinavia - PF, PrivatAir, Privateways, S Air, SAS Ireland, SHS Antwerp, SiAvia, SkyTaxi - TE, Skywork - SX, Small Planet - S5, Small Planet Poland - 5P, South African Airlink, Stobart Air, Suckling, Tayaran Jet, Thomas Cook UK - MT, Thomas Cook Balearics, Thomas Cook Belgium - HQ, Tikal Jets, Transaero - UN, Tyrolean, Varig - RG, Virgin Express, VLM - VG, VLM Slovenia, Wizz Ukraine - WU, WOW Air - WW, XL France - SE

[Level bust]

I've flown on 54 airlines, which started in 1966 with Channel Airways, but only 21 that are still flying.

[Uplinker]

It is said that if you want to make a small fortune; start with a large fortune, then open an airline !

Given that the maintenance costs of aircraft are so high, it amazes me that any airline survives - especially with Low Cost fares.

Maybe it is much easier to start an airline than keep it going profitably? i.e. perhaps there are lots of tax breaks and other financial mechanisms available to someone starting an airline, but they become unavailable after the first year or whatever. Given the thousands of people employed by an airport and the airlines, maybe governments make it very easy to start an airline.

Maybe there is a group of big money men and their CEOs, who go around starting airlines, take a nice healthy payout, then move on, knowing that the airline will fail, owing to huge maintenance costs and competition creating unsustainable financial pressures. Only very few airlines manage to navigate through that and survive.

[ZFT]

Umm. Established airlines globally are generally announcing record profits so I doubt maintenance costs, staff costs and the like are a factor. Sky high fares and lower and lower product offerings are I suspect the reason.

Certainly I meet very few people today that get any joy from air travel.

[IBMJunkman]

Without taking a memory pill I can only get to 5.

[PAXboy]

My log book (aka spreadsheet) says I have been on 54 carriers of whom 26 are deceased, that is across 57 years and a few months, some:-

• Just stopped - British Midland and Kulula in South Africa
• Absorbed - GO
• Some emerged - BA CitiExpress and then vanished back into the corporate morass
• Many mergers - NorthWest, Eastern and Continental in the USA
• Manx Ailines had the distinction of being bought up and shut down by BA twice (although I sit to be corrected on that).

[pppdrive]

Thanks All, seems I'm not unique at all (apart from ex wife's opinion) and the percentage of failed Airlines against those still operating is far greater than I thought.
to "PAXBOY' I also use a made up spreadsheet as my 'logbook' but also have the same details on the "Flight Diary" website which is now part of "Flight Radar 24," and I find it great as it gives so much more information such as most used airline, airports, days of the week you travelled etc.
to "ZFT" I agree flying just isn't the fun and enjoyment it used to be but just sometimes you can find a way to go back to being treated as a person rather than part of the 'cattle truck' mentality of now. I recently had to fly from Melbourne to Brisbane and decided I'd try Link Airways on their Saab 34 service from Melbourne's Essendon Airport. Such a pleasant change to go back to using Essendon where you are treated as a person and the Link Airways flight via a short stop at Wollongong was a pleasure. A bit more expensive that the 'Majors' but well worth it. Paul

[Level bust]

I have a passenger log book that I bought probably about 50 years ago! I don't know if you can still buy one.

However I also use Flight Diary which is good for stats, but I also use spreadsheets, for Airports and Countries flown to as well as total hours and date first flown on particular type.

Currently the Boeing 747-400 (248:55) is the most hours flown on but slowly being caught up by the Boeing 787, currently on 186:15

[BFSGrad]

Including brands that ceased via merger…

Altair
Aloha
Eastern
Midwest Express
Northwest
Pan Am
Pilgrim
Texas International
TWA
USAir

[Saintsman]

I remember flying Laker and the public campaign to save them.

[Asturias56]

Ah yes NorthWest - I cried with relief when they went.................

[PAXboy]

I only travelled once on Continental - and during the LAX-JFK red eye - decided I would not do so again. This was in the days before Gordon Bethune turned them around. He did such a good job that they then got bought up. However, I did not have a chance to use them after they improved.

[Uplinker]

Originally Posted by pppdrive

........I agree flying just isn't the fun and enjoyment it used to be but just sometimes you can find a way to go back to being treated as a person rather than part of the 'cattle truck' mentality.....I recently had to fly from Melbourne to Brisbane and decided I'd try Link Airways on their Saab 34 service from Melbourne's Essendon Airport. Such a pleasant change to go back to using Essendon where you are treated as a person and the Link Airways flight via a short stop at Wollongong was a pleasure. A bit more expensive that the 'Majors' but well worth it. Paul

(my bold) That's the answer, right there. Most passengers click on the cheapest fare, so airlines race to the bottom. The result is poor service with knees against the seat in front. God help us all if we ever actually had to 'perform' an emergency evacuation.

Sadly, there are not enough of you/us, and we see the result in worse service and worse aircrew Ts & Cs.

[BRUpax]

I began flying on commercial airlines in 1956 (on an Airspeed Ambassador operated by BEA). However, I only started logging my flights from 1963. Going from memory, in that period I made approximately 10 flights. Since then I have logged 2205 flights with 186 operators. A quick count reveals that 113 of these no longer exist. It would be too long to list them all.

[oldpax]

Fails

From memory!British united airlines,Cunard Eagle, Aden airways(?)Brymon,Pan Am,Varig and there was another that flew from Bournemouth in the late nineties.
I believe the RAF is still going!

[Asturias56]

give it time.................

[Saintsman]

Originally Posted by oldpax

and there was another that flew from Bournemouth in the late nineties.

I remember them. Eurodirect. Only lasted a year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurodirect

[Hartington]

Silver City, Dan Air, BOAC, BEA, British Midland & BMI, Trans Australia, Qantas Jetlink NZ, CAAC, Royal Nepal Airline, Indian Airlines, Varig, British Eagle, Sabena, Swissair, Olympic, Pan Am, TWA, Western, Eastern, Continental (2 variants!), Hughes Air West, Air Cal, BUA, British Airtours, Brymon, Court Line (when they were scheduled,might have still been Autair), Invicta, ARG/LAPA (Argentina - seemed to change their name in between the two flights I took!), AeroPeru, Austral, GO, TABSO, CSA, JAT Yugoslavian Airlines, BCAL, Maersk, Frontier (when it was a "local Service carrier"), LIAT, BWIA, National, US Air (well, sort of, it was a 767, painted BA and a BA flight number but US Air crews).