Nordic budget airline Primera Air collapses

Passengers have been left
stranded by Primera going bust.
Peter
Macdiarmid/Getty Images

• Nordic budget airline Primera Air has become the latest
  European carrier to go bust.
• The European budget airline sector has been struggling for a
  while — Monarch went bust last year and Ryanair issued a profit
  warning this week.

Nordic budget airline Primera Air has become the latest European
carrier to go bust, saying all flights were being halted and
stranding thousands of passengers.

“On this sad day we are saying goodbye to all of you,” the
airline
wrote in a note on its website dated September 30.

Here’s the message:

Primera
Air/screenshot

Primera was forced to cancel flights earlier this year, citing
delays in receiving aircraft from Airbus, but has faced growing
complaints about poor service and late refunds. The airline was
planning to launch routes from Madrid to New York, Boston, and
Toronto next year at prices as low as €149 ($172) each way.

In Europe,
legacy airlines have been fighting back against low-cost
rivals by operating budget carriers of their own, squeezing an
already crowding market and driving fares lower. KLM has
Transavia while sister company Air France has launched Joon.

IAG, the parent company of British Airways and Iberia, in 2012
took full control of Spanish low-cost airline Vueling, which
services destinations across Europe. Last year, IAG launched
Level, a low-cost long-haul carrier designed to take on Norwegian
and WOW. Lufthansa has been developing its Eurowings and
Germanwings low-cost subsidiaries for the past 15 years.

Primera’s collapse comes a year after Britain’s
Monarch Airlines went under after falling victim to intense
competition for flights and a weaker pound. Air Berlin,
Germany’s second-largest airline, filed for bankruptcy protection
in August 2017.

Just yesterday,
Ryanair, Europe’s biggest airline by passengers, warned that
profit for the year would be hit by the fallout from labor
strikes and rising fuel prices. The airline said more staff
strikes could force the company to issue further profit warnings.