Slovenia’s flag carrier Adria Airways files for bankruptcy

September 30, 2019

Slovenia’s former national airline, Adria Airways, announced on Monday that it had filed for receivership.

Adria, which was bought from Slovene state ownership by German investment fund 4K in 2016, released a statement saying: “Adria Airways on Monday filed at the court in Kranj a request to start a bankruptcy procedure,” citing a “lack of liquidity.”

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Slovenia’s Civil Aviation Agency said Adria’s licence had been revoked and that all of the airline’s planes had been grounded.

The announcement comes just hours after Slovenia’s Economy Minister Zdravko Pocivalsek said receivership was the only possible avenue for the company.

And the German owners, 4K, came in for some heavy criticism from Pocivalsek. The politician said that Adria’s losses were higher than anticipated. He also said that Slovenia might set up a new national carrier in the wake of Adria’s demise.

Economy hit but no bailout

Slovenia’s economy and tourism industry is expected to take a hit but Pocivalsek said the government was unable to help as the company was privately owned, also saying that its levels of debt would prohibit such a move.

“This would entail us taking over a high debt and enabling the owner to avoid any accountability,” Pocivalsek said. “This would be irresponsible to the citizens and the budget.”

Just last week, Slovenia’s Civil Aviation Agency gave Adria seven days to present a financial restructuring plan.

Adria started canceling flights because of its liquidity problems, with the decision affecting more than 10,000 passengers.

Ranking of the world’s safest/unsafest airlines

Unsafe China Airlines

About 3.7 billion passengers traveled by plane in 2016. Those who chose China Airlines as their carrier subjected themselves to the biggest risk, because the Taiwanese airline came in at the bottom of JACDEC’s list of 60 globally operating carriers.

Ranking of the world’s safest/unsafest airlines

Colombia’s Avianca no alternative

The ranking was compiled on the basis of national air safety reports of the past 30 years. It measured the number of casualties and crashes against the airlines’ traveled kilometers and passenger numbers. An airline without any loss of life and planes is given an index of zero to 0,001 points. Colombia’s Avianca scored a value of 0.914 – the second-worst in 2016.

Ranking of the world’s safest/unsafest airlines

High crash risk in Indonesia, too

Traveling with Garuda Indonesia – the third-worst performer on a score of 0.770 – isn’t to be recommended either. Since its founding in 1950, the airline has reported 47 accidents – 22 of which have led to a total of 583 casualties.

Ranking of the world’s safest/unsafest airlines

Ranking unbalanced?

But JACDEC’s ranking has been criticized for not separately counting technical defects, human errors, weather incidents and terrorist attacks as reasons for plane crashes. Terrorism, for example, is really an airport safety problem; it accounts for 10 percent of accidents. Simon Ashley Bennett, an air safety expert at Leicester University, says a terror attack on a plane is as unlikely as…

Ranking of the world’s safest/unsafest airlines

Bad weather

… an incident of freak weather leading to an accident. Latest data say that 10 percent of them can be attributed to snow, ice, fog and storms. Lightning isn’t as dangerous as many believe. More prone to cause crashes are…

Ranking of the world’s safest/unsafest airlines

Technology glitches

Today’s modern aircraft brim with technology. Small wonder then that technical defects account for about 20 percent of accidents, says Bennett, surpassed only by the biggest cause…

Ranking of the world’s safest/unsafest airlines

The human factor

Airline pilots are the biggest risk factor – they cause half of all accidents these days. Interaction between human beings and ever more complicated machines is prone to lead to mistakes, with the pilot always held accountable if something goes wrong.

Ranking of the world’s safest/unsafest airlines

Masters in the air

Yet, the 2009 crash landing in the Hudson River by Chesley Sullenberger shows that humans’ piloting skills are not obsolete in modern aviation. Sullenberger’s feat was only the third crash landing on water without casualties. All 155 passengers survived.

Ranking of the world’s safest/unsafest airlines

Scrap heap or repair?

Strangely enough, an aircraft that has been repaired after a crash gives an airline a better score with JACDEC than one that has been scrapped. Not a few experts question whether such a plane is really safe anymore.

Ranking of the world’s safest/unsafest airlines

More ambiguities

Further reason for criticism comes from the fact that an airline taken over by a rival has its score set back to zero by JACDEC. Lauda Air’s 1991 crash with more than 200 casualties (see picture), for example, didn’t affect the score of Austrian Airlines, which bought Lauda in 2004. Newly-founded airlines also start with zero points.

Ranking of the world’s safest/unsafest airlines

And the winner is…

Hongkong-based Cathay Pacific was the safest airline in 2016, according to the rankiing of the Hamburg, Germany-based institute. Runners-up were Air New Zealand and China’s Hainan Airlines. Germany’s flagship carrier, Lufthansa, landed in 12th place. On balance, 2016 was among the years with the fewest accidents in aviation history.

Ranking of the world’s safest/unsafest airlines

Safer but deadly, too

Last year, JACDEC counted 321 deaths from plane crashes. But the Aviation Safety Network counted four deaths more due to a different inventory method. By far the worst aviation accident was that of a Bolivian charter flight carried out by LaMia, which crashed near Medellin, killing 71 people – among them almost the entire player roster of Brazilian football club AF Chapecoense.

Author: Insa Wrede