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(Adds Stansted statement and planner's offer history)
October 2 (Reuters) – Cheap airline Primera Air has become the last European airline to go bankrupt. She told staff that all flights were stopped and thousands of passengers were stranded.
"On this sad day, we say goodbye," said Primera Air in a statement released Tuesday on its website. bit.ly/2P2AiZW
Primera Air, owned by Iceland but based in Copenhagen, started in 2003 and has served 97 destinations in more than 20 countries.
The airline announced last month its intention to launch Madrid-New York, Boston and Toronto routes next year at an introductory price of 149 euros ($ 172) each way.
He also announced plans in September for direct long-haul flights between Frankfurt, New York, Boston, Toronto and Montreal starting next year.
London Stansted Airport, which is trying to promote transatlantic flights, has urged passengers in Primera not to go to the airport.
The collapse comes exactly one year after the bankruptcy of the British company Monarch Airlines, victim of intense competition for flights and a lower pound.
Air Berlin, the second largest airline in Germany, filed for bankruptcy protection in August 2017.
Primera was forced to cancel flights earlier this year, due to delays in receiving Airbus aircraft, but has more and more to complain about poor service and refunds late.
AIRBUS, BOEING OFFERS
Its collapse will be a blow to planners Airbus and Boeing, who both used the airline to introduce new strategies designed to use data analysis to help airlines run and operate well. increase their high margin revenue.
Primera was also at the center of a battle between the aircraft giants to expand the range and performance of their single-aisle planes, which were selling best, thus attracting new players to the lucrative market transatlantic.
It was a launch customer for the Airbus A321LR, the longest range version of the A321neo narrow jet.
The demand for such jets has helped shape the strategies of planners in recent years, Boeing seeking to counter with a new mid-size model next year.
Primera took delivery of its first A321neo leased from General Electric's GECAS leasing unit in April.
But in June, he had been forced to postpone his planned flights between Birmingham (England), New York and Toronto because of "serious delays" in receiving Airbus A321neo aircraft.
Airbus had problems delivering the aircraft, mainly because of delays in the engines. Reuters announced Friday that it has encountered quality problems at the Hamburg factory, where A321neo jets are manufactured. (Report by Ismail Shakil in Bengaluru, Tim Hepher in Paris, edited by Adrian Croft and Jason Neely)
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