Placed on September 23 in receivership, XL Airways announced Monday to be “no longer able to ensure its flights” and their interruption “as of Monday at 3pm
The low-cost airline XL Airways announced Monday 30th September 2019 the removal of all flights, two days before a court decision on a possible recovery or its liquidation, strongly denouncing a competition that it deems unfair.
This decision comes three days after the announcement of the end of Aigle Azur by the Commercial Court of Evry, lack of recovery solution strong enough for this company specializing in serving the Mediterranean and especially Algeria and employing 1150 employees.
XL Airways has been the subject of “several marks of interest supported,” said Saturday, the deadline for submitting offers, his lawyer Laurent Coltret, noting, however, that they were facing funding problems.
570 employees, four devices
The company, founded in 1995, employs 570 people and in 2018 transported some 730,000 passengers with four Airbus A330s, all leased. It mainly serves North America, including the United States, the Caribbean and Reunion, but also China.
Placed on September 23rd in receivership, XL Airways announced Monday to be “no longer able to ensure its flights” and their interruption “from Monday at 3pm, pending” the decision of the Commercial Court of Bobigny. It must decide Wednesday on a possible buyer. Three flights were scheduled Monday departing from Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle airport to China, the United States and Saint-Denis-de-la-Réunion.
XL Airways said Monday that it has not been “able to find the investor able to support the continuity and development” of its “business model” low-cost company that “was a great success until it is hard hit by ruthless competition with no binding rules of the same order as ours “.
“For the last three years, it has been the company most attacked by incredibly unprofitable foreign competitors who have long been supported by their states,” she added.
“It is now obvious that we can no longer fight with the means that are ours.”
XL Airways CEO Laurent Magnin has repeatedly denounced the disastrous effects for his company of the arrival in Paris of the low-cost long-haul Norwegian and called the Air France-KLM group to the rescue.
“Unbridled competition”
But Friday, the director-general of the Franco-Dutch group, Ben Smith, showered the hopes, explaining that he saw “no benefit” of such an operation for his group and that he “was not yet convinced” by the long-haul low-cost model. He also pleaded for consolidation of the still highly fragmented sector in France.
Several companies, including the pioneer Norwegian Air Shuttle in 2016, offer low prices on long-haul transatlantic routes from Paris, with very attractive call prices, by betting on a segmentation of the offer (checked baggage). , on-board entertainment or paid meals), reduced costs thanks to synergies between companies from the same group, brand new aircraft that consume less kerosene and lower labour costs than a conventional airline.
In mid-September, Norwegian, itself in difficulty, announced that it obtained a respite from creditors who agreed to postpone the repayment of bonds with a total value of nearly 350 million euros.
French air sector professionals have been questioning for years the weight of charges and taxes that handicap them against their European competitors, but also those of the Gulf.
Evoking the “suffering of the French flag” after the liquidation of the company Aigle Azur, XL Airways hoped Monday “that all French actors, political and industrial will mobilize to meet unbridled competition in a consolidated and resistant pavilion.”
Secretary of State for Transport Jean-Baptiste Djebbari said on September 20, the day after the announcement by the company of his situation of cessation of payment, to have activated the international assistance system allowing passengers XL Airways, stranded abroad to benefit from a repatriation solution.
