Hong Kong is semi autonomous I think?

If so the Chinese government probably would not get directly involved, unless they were sued for restraint of trade (which I really hope will happen, although probably politically impossible).

It was the moped of the airliner world!

Quite small but produced a strangely massive amount of ear splitting noise. It isn’t a type I would drool over.

Operating cost is only half the issue, Kabir. Acquisition cost is the other half.

It may well have paid off to operate both A346 and B773ER in that context. Delivery flexibility (or lack thereof) also has an inherent cost. The finance cost will be slightly different for each aircraft too – in terms of fees, interest rates, penalties and the maintainence of a good credit relationship with a given bank or finance house.

There is a theory called “economic re-order value” in accounting which tries to quantify excatly what should be order and when, for a given set of variables – and there are lots.

Yes, Silvio Berlusconi was in the crowd at Old Trafford. He bankrolls Milan doesn’t he?

Pretty turgid stuff on the field though.

They probably need to place OA into liquidation and then provide non-financial assistance (“poliitcal help”) to a new start-up.

I do not see any alternative! OA is heavily in debt and cannot be given any state funding as this is illegal, although the EU usually turns a blind eye to non-UK subsidies. The industrial relations situation is a mess and they probably need to tear up the contracts and issue new ones, which unfortunately is also illegal unless the unions suddenly become very friendly.

Frankly a new OA would be more likely to sack the dead wood and run itself on a more efficient, customer focused and meritocratic basis – I rather suspect OA is a resting ground for civil servants, not a place for ambituious executives/lawyers/accountants.

It’s not so long ago they were flying 747’s on the LHR-ATH route which probably were only as full as the 737’s Easyjet used. And as GD1 commented recently, they are ignoring the huge Greek communities in places like Australia, which is a huge market they simply do not serve despite having too many long haul aircraft.

The Gulf airlines are trying to exploit the terrible conditions at the European hubs (eg. LHR, CDG) to a certain extent.

They also offer a better average service than European airlines manage and, for the Far East and Australia, have equally good if not better connections.

The hub airports they use are amongst the best in the world and getting better still. This attracts a small number of passengers.

And certainly not least, some of these airlines are funded on the basis that the owners will meet sometimes large losses in order to gain market share. However although they will accept losses, the owners are generally shrewd businessmen who demand efficiency – unlike similar loss making airlines such as Olympic or Sabena. The owners are willing to do so in an attempt to diversify their interests away from oil. Finally, they all seem to be skilled at the art of negotiating with the manufacturers – money talks!

As alluded to in another post, the next part of their growth is moving from 2-stop to 1-stop routes on long haul sectors by acquiring longer ranged aircraft (773ER, 772LR, A345/346).