SkyEurope declares bankruptcy
Christopher Adam
According to a press release circulated minutes before midnight (Central European Time) on 31 August 2009, SkyEurope has formally declared itself bankrupt and has canceled all of its flights. Bratislava’s Letisko M.R. Stefánik’s airport’s website now lists all of the Slovak discount carriers flights as canceled and SkyEurope’s own website carries a message informing passengers that the company has suspended all operations. Further, the vast majority of passengers will not be eligible for a refund, if they have already purchased a ticket for a SkyEurope flight.
What can you do if you bought a ticket with SkyEurope for a future flight? If you are like the author of this article and are stuck with a future SkyEurope ticket, your only hope is with your credit card company. If you paid for your flight with a credit card, you might be able to ask your bank or credit card issuer for a refund, since no service was rendered to you. If, however, you purchased your SkyEurope ticket through other means–such as a bank transfer or by cash–you are sadly out of luck.
The message posted on SkyEurope’s website makes it abundantly clear that passengers can expect no assistance from the now defunct Slovak carrier. In fact, if you are a passenger already at your current destination, but hoping to return home at the end of your vacation, you must „order a return flight from some other airline at your own expense,” according to the words of an unapologetic bankrupt carrier.
SkyEurope’s bankruptcy–and that of Zoom Airlines, another low-cost carrier precisely one year ago–makes that old adage ring truer than ever: you get what you pay for. Many of Europe’s low cost carriers are deeply dubious businesses. They only seem to offer bargain deals before you scratch below the surface to realize that you will pay the difference in price between this and full service airlines, once you check bags, order ground transportation from the godforsaken airport that the carrier uses as its base, or purchase a meal on board.
Author: Christopher Adam
A Kanadai Magyar Hírlap alapítója és főszerkesztője. A montreáli Concordia Egyetemen diplomázott történelemből. Master of Arts fokú képzését a Carleton Egyetemen, PhD-jét az Ottawai Egyetemen szerezte, szintén történelemből. A KMH-n kívül a Hungarian Free Press című angol nyelvű lap főszerkesztője. 2015-ben Szabad Sajtó díjjal tüntették ki a Kanadai Magyar Hírlapot. A díjat Christopher Adam vette át Budapesten a Szabad Sajtó Alapítványtól.
4:42 de.
Sir, I would like to stress as a user of SkyEurope flights between Paris and Bratislava that this bankruptcy is very bad news.
Contrary to what the article implies, SkyEurope used to fly between Bratislava’s only airport and Paris-Orly airport, a major and well-connected airport in France (not the distant Paris-Beauvais airport that some other -but not all – low cost airlines use).
Besides, theirs was the only direct flight between the two capitals as all other companies offer either a stopover e.g. in Prague or a flight to Vienna+bus to Bratislava, with extraordinary extra costs and and time.
As far as catering is concerned, it is true that low-cost companies offer nothing for free but service on short and middle-distance flights of major, recognized airlines has fallen to such levels that it really does not make much of a difference. The sad lesson of this story may be that low-cost companies have a hard time connecting Central Europe to Western destinations even where major airlines do not try very hard to satisfy demands on the same relations.