Current Affairs SkyEurope, the second biggest airline at Prague Airport, goes bankrupt

The second largest airline at Prague’s Ruzyně airport has gone out of business. In mid-August, Vienna airport stopped servicing SkyEurope flights over unsettled payments, and on Monday, Prague threatened to do the same. Just hours later, the Slovak-owned budget airline filed for bankruptcy. Although the holiday season is winding down, the collapse of the low-cost airline has left thousands of Czechs stranded at holiday destinations around Europe, and a much larger number with useless flight tickets in their pockets. Marika Janoušková is a spokeswoman for Prague Airport.

“We don’t know the exact number of clients, but yesterday there were about 600 of them at the airport. At this moment, their clients are not here because they already used the offers of other airlines, especially Czech Airlines.”

The chief analyst for the Brno-based brokerage firm Cyrrus, Jan Procházka, points out however that the overall number of travellers affected by the collapse is difficult to establish.

“Nobody knows because it’s a company that’s listed at the Vienna and Warsaw stock exchanges, but nobody knows the accurate number of clients. I think it will be a huge number – it could be in thousands, maybe even in tens of thousands. But who knows. They recently started offering flights for the autumn and winter, and nobody knows how successful the booking was.”

The airline, which was established in 2002, has had problems throughout the season. It posted a loss of 540 million crowns, or more than 30 million US dollars, for the first half of 2009, and in June, a court in Bratislava granted the carrier protection from creditors, but that did not help. Analyst Jan Procházka again.

“No protection can work when you are not paying your commitments because none of the suppliers, such as airports like Paris, Vienna and Prague, have a duty to provide services without payment. But the long-term strategy of SkyEurope made sense – they wanted to attract many clients all around Europe, and after firmly establishing their brand, they wanted to raise the prices. But there were some problems, such as 9/11, bird flu and the financial crisis.”

Jan Procházka For Prague Airport, the bankruptcy of SkyEurope means a loss of its second biggest client. But Marika Janoušková says the collapse will not affect its operations.

“That was about 5 to 6 percent of our clients, and we are now talking to other airlines about establishing connections to the same destinations that SkyuEurope flew into. The collapse of SkyEurope will not affect Prague Airport.”

Customers stranded abroad will have to find their own way home. Several airlines have started offering tickets to the same destinations for a small surcharge to those who have not left yet. SkyEurope has set up a help line for its clients – (0042) 246 096 096, but there is little hope they will get their money back.