Bankruptcy of Malev shocks Russian tour operators
The news about the business failure of Hungary’s largest air carrier Malev hit Russian tour operators really hard. First of all the airline was very loyal to travel market, and second, the travel companies have just made their deposits for the upcoming season, and it’s hard to tell if the money would be refunded.
According to Director General of Amigo-tours Company Ms. Natalia Galitskaya, the future of Hungarian national air carrier is still unclear. “After Malev’s breakdown we used Austrian Airlines’ flights to bring our tourists back home from Budapest. Malev who failed to provide transportation, issued them certificates for reimbursement of their airfares. But it still remains unclear how the new tourists, who hold Malev tickets, are going to travel and who is going to pay for it” – she pointed out.
Executive Director of DVM-tour Mr. Nikolay Salatov is sure that the tour operators will be the ones to pay. “Unfortunately we don’t have to get used to it. This is the fourth bankruptcy of an air carrier this year, including Atlant-Soyuz and Czech Connect Airlines. So the procedure of making yet another payment and bringing out tourists at our expense is very well known to us. Even though Aeroflot has a codeshare agreement with Malev, it hasn’t made any offers so far. We are not waiting for any news from Malev, we just rebook our tourists to other flights” – he said to RATA-news.
“The news of Malev’s bankruptcy has been a shock for us. Tours to Hungary are in stable demand, we sell tour packages for March and May holidays very actively. We are not really looking forward to losing the money we have just deposited to Malev for the upcoming season” – tells Director General of Vedi Tour Group Ms. Irina Fedina.
Hungary’s largest air carrier Malev ceased operations on February 3, 2012. A day earlier Hungarian government appointed a receiver to protect the airline from its creditors’ claims. Over the last years Malev has been constantly assisted by the government, but in January European Commission urged it to return €130 million to the state, saying that such financial help is a violation of European laws. This amount of money equals the airline’s annual turnover in 2010. Meanwhile, Malev has been accounted for a half of the Budapest airport’s revenue. At the time of the business failure Malev had 2.6 thousand employees and 22 passenger jets, mostly leased Airbuses and Boeings.
“Working with Malev has been very well to us. The airline offered reasonable prices and booking terms and operated very flexible, which allowed us to develop the destination. The loss will be appreciable for the market” – says Nikolay Salatov – Budapest is in high demand with European tourists. There are always many of those who wish to spend a weekend there or to make use of Hungary’s quite affordable medical resorts. So the destination won’t be left “unattended”, it has already aroused interest among some European low-costers. Only they don’t fly to Russia”.
And in point of fact, just two hours after the statement of Malev’s bankruptcy two low-cost airlines, Irish Ryanair and German Airberlin, announced significant increase in the number of Budapest-bound flights. Ryanair, for example, promised to fix 25 new flights from Hungary’s capital, both domestic and international. New services to and from Hungarian airports will also be launched by German Lufthansa airline.
At the same time some sources reported a new air carrier to be established by Hungarian government to replace Malev. But this time with a larger share of private investments. However there is no official confirmation on this matter.
As for now the Hungarian air carrier with its $270 million debt is under the protection of a bankruptcy law. The company is expected to be either sold to private investors or simply liquidated. This is yet another evidence of the tough situation on European aviation market. Just a week before Malev, another air carrier - Czech Connect Airlines - went bankrupt, closely followed by Spanish Spanair.
“Malev’s bankruptcy is most likely to follow a softer scenario than it was with Czech Connect. Unlike privately-owned Czech airline, the Hungarian state got the national air carrier’s back. It has already promised to reimburse all expenses to its passengers who had to pay for other flights from their own pocket. The question is will that money be enough to cover all damage, including tour operators’ pre-payments. As we can see there are still many questions to Malev. But we have always been cooperating very closely with its Moscow office and we do hope that on Monday-Tuesday the situation will become clearer” – said Irina Fedina.