Europe’s airlines: which one is the next to fail?

Are you expecting more airline failures in Europe in 2019? With dramatic voice, CNN’s Richard Quest put forward this question to five airline CEO’s in the closing debate at last week’s Airlines 4 Europe (A4E) Aviation Summit in Brussels. “Yes!”, was the verbal and non-verbal reply from all of them, easyjet’s Johan Lundgren, IAG’s Willie Walsh, Lufthansa’s Carsten Spohr, Air France-KLM’s Pieter Elbers, and Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary.

Last year saw the demise of amongst others Scandinavia’s Primera, Lithuania’s Small Planet, Cypriot Cobalt, while this year Germania and flybmi

have ceased operations. High fuel costs last year are often quoted as the main factor for the financial troubles that pushed airlines out, but the five bosses were surprised that problems have caught out more airlines this year now that fuel has become cheaper again.
Airinsight listened to what the CEO’s had to say on Europe’s state and caught up with some personally:

Michael O’Leary – Ryanair/A4E chairman:
“Norwegian will be the first when they run out of money in September/October. They might actually not go bust, but there will be a restructuring of some way with new investors. I expect IAG to step in one moment or another. SAS can’t make money, it will have to find a way of becoming a partner of Lufthansa. Wizz Air is the next obvious candidate to be taken out. If IAG does Norwegian, Lufthansa will probably do Wizz. TAP Portugal will eventually end up as part of the IAG family and I expect Alitalia to end up with Air France-KLM if it is not bought by the Italian railway company and broken up.
The industry is moving towards five major airline groups within the next five years that will control 80 percent of the traffic across Europe. That will not all be unitary groups, there will be alliances. Ryanair will be one of them. It will be good, as A4E will be stronger and the fares will be lower, although I expect them on the long-haul to become under pressure”.