We’ll have to start a campaign to stop BD being swollowed up by the giants of Europe. It will come to the stage in only years to come where there will be just 1 maybe 2 or at a push – 3 airlines in Europe. The AF/KLM group, the LH group and some sort of amalgomation from BA.
Who knows?!?!?!?!
Something like:
1) LH/LX/SN, possibly OS, SK, BD
2) AF/KL, possibly a reborn AZ, CSA, OS, MA
3) BA/IB, possibly OS, MA
For the network carriers the only wildcards are Austrian, Malev, TAP and BMI. And I would not be surprised to see BMI go in whole or in part to a foreign (non-EU) airline. With the slots BMI has a take-over might be lucrative for the likes of Emirates. Then there are also Alitalia and Olympic but they will have to liquidate first before they are of interest to anyone.
Then on the low cost front I would expect also 2 or 3 left:
1) Easyjet
2) Ryanair
Those two are a given. Assuming they are not affected by a crash they will last. There are lots of smaller carriers that have their niche, but not enough muscle to break out of that niche and into U2/FR territory. Next to that there are plenty of carriers that are clinging on for life.
Wildcard amongst the LCCs is Air Berlin. They are large, have a good reputation and a very good product. But they are extremely heavily in debt and are still in the proces of merging the 5 (!) carrier they bought the last 5 years (Germania, LTU, FlyDBA, Niki, Balair and they are working on buying Condor). Perhaps they will succeed, perhaps they are bought by someone else now their shares are worth so little. I for one believe that Easyjet would be a perfect match. There is little overlap on routes and the service provided matches quite well.
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