There is a question which bother since a little while.
We all remember 3 major crashes in the past involving 3 different airlines.
TWA flight 800 at Long Island NY (747)
PanAM flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland (747)
UTA flight 772 over Niger (DC10)
Those three airlines disappeared soon after the disaster.
1) Do you think that those accident drove the airline to bankrupcy (even if UTA was “acquired” by AF?
2) Do you think that the law suites and major expenses ahead might put UA and AA in danger as well?
3) Does someone have some figures of the consequences of those disasters on those airlines
By: Whiskey Delta - 11th August 2004 at 03:24
ValueJet went under soon after one of their DC-9’s went down in the Florida Everglades due to a fire in the cargo area due to an illegally boarded oxygen canister. The company was saved and renamed as AirTran a number of years ago.
I think companies that are on poor financial ground can’t weather the aftermath of an accident. American and United lost a total of 5 aircraft in 2001 and none of their current financial troubles stem from that.
Pan Am went away thanks to the poor managing.
By: Bhoy - 9th August 2004 at 22:22
TWA didn’t go bust as such, either, they were acquired by AA.
You could probably also add SR111 at Halifax to that list, although I’m not sure either of the two crashes caused the eventual collapse of the airline (TWA and UTA being exceptions, having been acquired)
However, wasn’t the UTA crash hijack related in some form or other, too?
By: SOFTLAD - 9th August 2004 at 19:09
Don’t know how true this is but i heard that after the AA A300 crash the insurance company said any more and we will pull the plug. If that was the case then im sure that would have cripled them. Sure no other insurance company would have taken them on either ? After Sept 11th and then that it most have cost their insures billions and i dread to think what the excess on those kind of figures are ?
By: tenthije - 9th August 2004 at 19:03
The crashes merely sped up the proces at TWA and PanAm, can´t tell for UTA as I do not know much about them. TWA and PanAm alreadly had large financial dificulties and bankruptcy was a matter of time.
It has happened though that a crash leads to a bankruptcy, and not just for small 1-plane airlines. ValueJet came very very close to bankruptcy after a crash that was caused by criminal negligence.
By: Bmused55 - 9th August 2004 at 19:03
There is a question which bother since a little while.
We all remember 3 major crashes in the past involving 3 different airlines.
TWA flight 800 at Long Island NY (747)
PanAM flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland (747)
UTA flight 772 over Niger (DC10)Those three airlines disappeared soon after the disaster.
1) Do you think that those accident drove the airline to bankrupcy (even if UTA was “acquired” by AF?
2) Do you think that the law suites and major expenses ahead might put UA and AA in danger as well?
3) Does someone have some figures of the consequences of those disasters on those airlines
Well, I’m not sure about 2 and 3. However, I know that TWA’s demise was not down to TWA Flight 800. It was primarily down to its ex CEO completely ripping the airline off.
I’m sure hank (TWA302) will expand on this.
Pan Am I’m not to sure of, but they lasted another 4 years after Lockerbie and I think were merely the victim of bad managment.
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August 9, 2004 at 6:42 pm