Senaste nytt

Allt står inte så bra till i Polen........ med LOT....

Senator

Moderator
Mycket intressant artikel från gårdagens Financial Times. Ligger bak en betalningsvägg, så källan är FT.com

Får SAS dramat i november att likna en enklare sitcom mot detta drama. Notera även FTs fyndiga rubrik; härligt med (engelsktalande) journalister som kan skriva så här:

Lot of aid keeps Polish airline aloft

By Jan Cienski in Warsaw

Poland’s Lot airline was supposed to be ending the year with a 52m zlotys ($16.8m) net profit.
Instead, the state-owned carrier has had to rush to the Treasury ministry for ahandout just to keep its aircraft flying through Christmas.


The aid request at the beginning of last week stunned the government, which owns 68 per cent of the airline, and a furious Mikolaj Budzanowski, treasury minister, called for the head of chief executive Marcin Pirog, blaming him for the debacle. Mr Pirog, who had served just over two years – longer than the average for Lot chief executives in recent years – was removed by the board. But a simple change at the top is unlikely to save Lot.

The airline has asked for 1bn zlotys in aid, and the full amount of help could come to 1.5bn zlotys. “This is an unbelievable sum,” says an aviation expert. “The airline only has revenues of about 3bn zlotys.” He says that without an immediate cash infusion, Lot will fail to pay its bills for fuel, airport fees and salaries. “People knew it was bad, but no one had any idea things were this bad.” Mr Pirog told a parliamentary committee this year that the airline – which lost 145m zlotys in 2011 – was on course to turn a profit.

All seemed well in November, when Lot staged a celebration as it became the first European airline to take delivery of Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner. Lot has put some of the blame for its troubles on a fall in business-class sales because the financial crisis is prompting many people to fly economy instead. But the airline faces deeper structural problems, something with which many other small flag carriers are struggling. Malév, Hungary’s national airline, stopped flying this summer, while Czech Airlines received approval for a €100m restructuring programme from Brussels and is being touted to Korean Air and Kuwait Airways.

Lot is still trying to be a full-service airline, offering long-haul flights to destinations such as Toronto, Chicago and Beijing while flying shorter national and European routes. “In this day and age, not every airline can do everything without subsidies,” says Aleksander Domaradzki, managing partner of DGL Polska, a consultancy. Lot faces competition at the bottom end from carriers such as Ryanair and Hungary’s Wizz Air, while airlines such as Lufthansa siphon off higher-end Polish travellers. The most viable solution would be to sell Lot, but a law reserving 51 per cent of the shareholding votes for the government makes it an unattractive partner for a potential European buyer. The Polish government has held out hopes that Turkish Airlines or Air China might rescue the airline, but European Union rules barring non-member-state carriers from taking more than a 50 per cent stake in any EU airline make that sort of transaction unlikely.
“It seems the normal course of events is for an airline to be brought to the brink of bankruptcy before politicians react,” says the aviation expert. “The same happened with Belgium’s Sabena, Alitalia and Austrian.”
 

Concorde

Founding Member
Tackar för bra info. Britterna är så sköna med sina fyndiga rubriker :)
Vad många inte vet är att LOT var ytterst nära KK redan i september men räddades av nytt kapital samt att OLT Express kursade före dom. MIn "insider" avrådde mig i somras att boka LOT då läget var mycket prekärt. Har flugit dom hela hösten dock.
Blir att boka med andra sällskap för nästa resa i januari för att vara på den säkra sidan.
 
Last edited:
Toppen