Adiós amigo - Spanair ceases operations

As if CCA, Cirrus and AirAlps were not enough, we lost yet another airline on Friday. Spanair (JK), which was a Star Alliance member with a hub in Barcelona El Prat Airport, suddenly ceased operations at 22 o'clock GMT and left thousands of passengers stranded across Europe. Those are good news for Spanish airlines Vueling and Air Europa which are expected to do their best filling the gap left from their competitor. Needless to say, Ryanair, easyJet, Iberia, Vueling and Air Europa immediately launched rescue fares, while SAS (SK) promised to help unlucky passengers as much as possible.

Spanair flight 5022 crash near Madrid Barajas
in 2008 left a scar on Spanair's image. 154
people lost their lives.

Although JK was in the red for a long time, it was not viewed as an airline on a brink of collapse by experts. SK was the majority shareholder since JK was funded in 1986, but became only the minority shareholder in 2009 when JK was sold to a group of investors from Catalonia. JK was then subsidized by the Government of Catalonia, although those subsidies were considered illegal by the European Union. The government recently made a decision to no longer invest in JK, so the airline had to find a new investor. Qatar Airways was close to buying 49% stake in JK, but unfortunately for them, the deal never materialized. Without any investors, the airline simply collapsed.

This leaves a huge gap in Barcelona, but it is safe to assume that Vueling and Air Europa will expand rapidly in the market. Star Alliance now became the only airline alliance without its player in the Spanish market, so they might want to do their best at keeping TAP Portugal away from IAG.

JK was never favored by its passengers - it was regarded as offering poor and overpriced service, something that simply couldn't work in such a dense market like Spain. But now, it's too late for an overhaul. As we can see, JK was just a bubble waiting to be burst.