Ryanair to Open Budapest Base in Two Weeks With 31 New Routes
On 03/02/2012, in Airline corner, by steve
Ryanair to Open Budapest Base in Two Weeks With 31 New Routes, 2M PAX P.A., SAVING UP TO 2,000 JOBS FOLLOWING MALEV’S CLOSURE RYANAIR FARES START FROM €9.99/HUF2,000 FROM 17 FEBRUARY
RYANAIR MEETING WITH HUNGARIAN GOVERNMENT AND
BUDAPEST AIRPORT TODAY TO FINALISE RESCUE PLAN
Ryanair, the world’s favourite airline today (3rd Feb) at a press conference in Budapest announced its intention to launch a rescue plan for Budapest and Hungarian tourism following the grounding of Malev airline last evening. Ryanair confirmed that it will base 4 brand new Boeing 737-800 series aircraft at Budapest Airport commencing in just two weeks time on Friday 17th February where it will open 31 new routes, offering lower fares (€9.99/HUF2,999) than any other airline, and delivering up to 2m passengers p.a., replacing most of the traffic and routes lost by Budapest following last night’s grounding of Malev.
Ryanair, which currently employs over 700 Hungarian pilots and cabin crew, will be holding an open recruitment day in Budapest on Tuesday next (7th Feb), inviting job applications from Malev pilots, cabin crew and engineers to help Ryanair gear up for this 4 aircraft, 2m passenger p.a. base at Budapest Airport. The International Airport Council figures confirm that this 2m pax p.a. will support 2,000 jobs at Budapest Airport.
This largest ever investment in Hungarian aviation and tourism is subject to reaching final agreement with Budapest Airport today on costs, facilities and handling, and Ryanair’s Deputy CEO Michael Cawley has travelled to Budapest to finalise these negotiations with Budapest Airport and the Hungarian Government. Because Ryanair has grounded up to 80 aircraft this winter, it has the capacity to respond immediately to the Malev grounding by moving aircraft, pilots and crews to Budapest within two weeks, in order to minimise the disruption to Hungarian consumers/visitors and tourism as a result of the Malev closure.
Ryanair’s new Budapest base will start on Friday 17th February at fares from €9.99/HUF2,999 and these 31 new routes go on sale at these HUF2,999/€9.99 fares on www.ryanair.com/hu today.
MALEV Ceases Operations
On 03/02/2012, in Airline corner, by steve
After 66 years of almost continuous operations, MALEV Hungarian Airlines stopped all flights as of 0600 this morning.
It is always a sad day when an airline stops operations, just like when any well known, big company closes its doors. There can be no doubt that most of us are reading the news of MALEV’s demise with tears in our eyes. We feel with those whose job has suddenly gone up in thin air. But!
It is important to ensure now that in these critical times emotions are not allowed to dominate and perhaps even more important to avoid the political mud slinging, so popular in Hungary these days. What has befallen Malev is in part indeed due to incorrect political decisions but it is much more important to recognize that MALEV, like many other European airlines, has failed to implement the necessary structural changes, that its efficiency was way below what is possible these days and that these were the reasons why they were not able to find a buyer for the company.
MALEV may have been an object of national pride, but in the meantime nobody bothered with the much more important task of implementing the changes required to make it a more efficient operation. Nobody had the courage to rationalize the number of people working there and to take honest account of what kind of airline would be able to operate profitably from Budapest. Why did they have to refuse a recent Spanish offer that would have converted Malev into a low cost carrier? Just one of the many screw-ups…
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American Airlines in Chapter 11 Protection – Memories of Another Day
On 30/11/2011, in Airline corner, by steve
It was a sunny afternoon in Brussels when we gathered with Russ Chew of American Airlines and my boss from IATA in our little garden in Zaventem to discuss how to proceed with the implementation of air/ground digital link and controller/pilot digital link communications (CPDLC). American was deeply unhappy with the way the FAA was handling the subject and they wanted to join the EUROCONTROL Petal trials which were booking good progress (in spite of repeated efforts on the part of some European States that wanted to kill the whole thing). The rest is history… American Airlines’ 767s were the first to be equipped with VDL Mode 2/ATN avionics and they played an essential role in ensuring that the US and Europe kept their respective digital link programs synchronized and fully interoperable.
This bold and unconventional step was typical of the spirit and attitudes of this great airline which traces its routes to the 1920s when it started to carry mail for the US government. Then in 1936 AA was the first airline to fly the Douglas DC-3, notable as the first aircraft designed to carry enough passengers to generate a profit even without revenue from mail or cargo.
But the list of innovative firsts tied to the name of American Airlines is almost endless. 1942 the catering service Sky Chefs was started to provide meals to AA passengers and in 1948 American introduced coach class service and family fares to make flying accessible to more people.
1957 saw the opening of the world’s first Stewardess College and in 1959 the first non-stop coast to coast service was introduced using the new Boeing 707.
Sabre, American’s state of the art computerized reservation system became an icon in itself first being made available to travel agents and later evolving into the core element of internet based reservation systems like Travelocity.
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United Airlines first network carrier to introduce paperless navigation charts
On 23/08/2011, in Airline corner, by steve
United Continental Holdings, Inc. has announced that it is converting to paperless flight decks and deploying 11,000 iPads to all United and Continental pilots. The electronic flight bags (EFB) replace paper flight manuals, and as a first for major network carriers, provide pilots with paperless aeronautical navigational charts through an iPad app. Distribution of iPads began earlier this month, and all pilots will have them by year end.
“The paperless flight deck represents the next generation of flying,” said Captain Fred Abbott, United’s senior vice president of flight operations. “The introduction of iPads ensures our pilots have essential and real-time information at their fingertips at all times throughout the flight.”
Navigational Charting App Breaks New Ground.
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Low Fare Airlines – ATM Nightmare of the Future?
On 04/07/2011, in Airline corner, by steve
There are two distinct schools of thought about how low fare airlines will evolve in the future. According to departing IATA boss Bisignani talking to Aviation Week, in Europe the model used by the low cost carriers, namely opening new point to point connections to secondary airports, will run out of steam within a year or two with all possible connections spoken for. They will than have to move closer to the model of the legacy carriers which is built more on a network of connecting flights. And higher costs. Though he did not say this, but one can almost hear the silent wish: and they will fade away.
In the same edition of Aviation Week, Pierre Sparaco quotes a study from York Aviation which predicts that by 2020 low cost carriers will increase their point-to-point market share in Europe to 60 % and the overall traffic share to 53 % with further growth a near certainty. This optimistic outlook is based on the clearly identified preference of large numbers of passengers for no frills, low cost service that is unlikely to wane in the coming years. The impact of low fares is bigger in Europe than in the US because there fares had been lower to begin with.
With most hub airports, homes to the legacy carriers, reaching their capacity and the chances of building new runways scant, competition from their low fare brethren will be the least of the problems legacy airlines will be facing when contemplating growth.
A white paper published by the EC recently clearly stated that capping traffic was not an option in the future and of course this bodes well for those able to meet increasing demand. Suddenly, flying to less constrained smaller airports will look even more attractive once the hubs get truly saturated… as they soon will do.
Members of the European Low Fare Airlines Association (ELFAA) carry more than 150 million passengers per year and York Aviation forecasts say their seat-miles offered will grow by 72 % by 2020. That is a lot of airplanes whichever way you count it.
Regardless of what Bisignani may be hoping for in my view this latter type of future is the more likely scenario.
If this is indeed true, the implications for air traffic management can be profound.
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Why lower delays are a problem for developments in air traffic management – a diabolical reality
On 08/10/2010, in Airline corner, by steve
Aviation is a cyclical business and it is only recently that airlines are managing, to a certain extent, to smooth the worst of the boom and bust swings. In the past, aircraft were ordered at a prodigious rate when business was booming only to see the additional capacity materialize exactly when business started to go down and capacity reduction was the name of the game.
But another cycle is still in the system and it spells trouble for all ATM projects requiring investments from the airlines.
When delays go through the roof, airlines come together to raise their voice, individually and via their associations, demanding improvements and better service. With the proper persuasion, they might even invest in a bit of new technology that promises to improve the delay situation. This can be a protracted process and there are always those who prefer to wait for someone else to save the situation… In any case, projects started during these black periods will still be ongoing when delays usually drop. This may have a variety of reasons, most not even connected with aviation as such, like the general economic situation in key markets impacting people’s propensity to fly.
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Conversion course – Does anyone understand the airlines?
On 22/06/2010, in Airline corner, by steve
My fascination with aircraft started at about age 5 and I first heard about air traffic control when I was 16. Gabi Nemeth who made music besides being an air traffic controller was on a TV talk show and he made a gallant effort to explain what ATC was all about… He must have done a great job because I for one understood what he was saying and from then on wanted nothing better than to be a controller. Being accepted to the physics faculty of a University in Budapest almost derailed my destiny but I corrected it soon enough and on my 21st birthday I issued the first landing clearance all on my own!
In the years that followed I collected just about every qualification a controller can have and added a bit of computer programming skill also. In time I exchanged the microphone for a desk at ICAO in Paris and later, for a post involved in building the new Amsterdam ATC system, AAA. But I never thought of myself as anything other than an air traffic controller. I was also very much convinced that what I was doing with or without the microphone, was the best possible course for our charges, the aircraft and their operators. Giving them directs, shortening the tracks wherever possible and the many other “treats” all appeared as going out of our way to help them.
My first exposure to IATA was at the very first Flow East meeting which was held in Budapest. We knew relatively little about this mighty organization or how it worked and were generally a bit suspicious of its motives… They sent a diminutive Swissair captain as one of their representatives and what he lacked in stature was more than made up for by his forceful personality and very clear words blasting us for the very poor job we were doing. He did not spare the civil aviation authorities either, drawing multiple color lines on a wall chart showing where the air routes should be in his view… Very few of the existing routes were where he thought they should be of course. His propensity for drawing colored lines earned him the nick “Tintoretto”. I remember how deeply hurt I felt by all the verbal abuse but also the feeling that may be, just may be, Tintoretto had a point. Had I known what profound effect his colored lines would have on my life many years later, I would have kissed the little captain on the brow for sure.
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Hungarians buy themselves an airline – Has MALEV been saved?
On 05/03/2010, in Airline corner, by cleo
It would be so nice being able to report here that the Hungarian government has finally found the magic bullet and their buying back of MALEV Hungarian Airlines was the first step in making the ailing company healthy again. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. It was politics that has given MALEV a new lease on life with no magic bullet in sight.
This was painfully evident in the interview with MALEV’s CEO Martin Gauss, shown in the morning program of Hungarian television aired on 4 March. The poor guy was trying to explain why he believed they had a good plan and in the process described how MALEV will first shrink, then grow, how they will copy the good things from the low-cost airlines and reject the bad ones… Nothing that we have not heard before and nothing that has actually worked for others in a similar predicament.
MALEV looks back on a proud history that started on 26 November 1950 when the company began independent operations as the successor of MASZOVLET, a post-war enterprise run together with the Russians. As the national flag carrier, MALEV flew far and wide, providing the vital links to Europe and the Middle-East during the communist years. Its Russian built aircraft were fuel guzzlers and the productivity of the company was nothing to write home about… But back then such things were of no consequence. The State had deep pockets and all holes created by the national carrier were plugged immediately.
When capitalism finally arrived in Hungary twenty something years ago, MALEV, like many other old names in the country was faced with the cruel realities of real competition. In all fairness we must add that the predicament of MAELV was perhaps even worse than that of the others because competition in the airline world is so much deadlier than elsewhere.
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Should MALEV be saved?
On 01/12/2009, in Airline corner, by cleo
Do you remember the term “flag-carrier”? This was usually applied to the airline of a country which was seen as the object of national pride. As recently as a decade ago, when new States came into being, no matter how small, one of their first acts had been to create a national airline (often followed by an air traffic control centre… but that is another story). Of course the aviation marketplace has changed in a big way, there is intense competition between companies, and being a flag-carrier has all but lost its patina.
Airlines have disappeared from the scene, some are gone completely (SABENA) others live on wearing the guise of companies that took them over (Northwest) and still others have kept their colors and name but are now just a division in a mega-carrier (Austrian and Brussels Airlines in Lufthansa, KLM in Air France). Most of them had one thing in common: their long (and not so long) term prospects were all but rosy. Surviving on national pride was not an option.
The problem with Malev is that many in Hungary want to save it because they believe that a country must have a national airline. They also claim that a country’s independence is reduced if it does not have its own airline. These are the worst possible reason for trying to save an ailing company and it costs a lot of taxpayer money before the company folds anyway.
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In memoriam Northwest Airlines
On 25/10/2009, in Airline corner, by steve
A330s of NWA
A few years back my business required a lot of travel to and all over the United States. I was a Northwest WorldPerks member and it was of course only natural that I flew via Amsterdam and than on the NWA system in the US.
Northwest was the fourth largest airline in America and for some reason they did not enjoy a stellar reputation… They flew old planes and customer service was supposed to be below par. Some people called them NorthWorst. May be I was lucky but in all the hundreds of thousands of miles I flew with them, I never had a single reason to complain.
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