Eos Airlines Ceases Operations

[PhilDernerJr]

http://eosairlines.com/

Wow. I did not see this coming!!

[Iberia A340-600]

Beat me by one second, Phil.

I am also very surprised. I wouldn't be surprised to see Silverjet go next...

[LGA777]

Really sad news and did not see this one coming !

http://www.eosclass.com/

Looks like a chance to still get a few shots Sunday. I wonder how much this will help Silverjet as I here they have been on life support ?

Best of Luck to the Eos Employees !

LGA777

[T-Bird76]

Surprised but not surprised, these niche carriers server a very limited market and with the economics of today's airline industry it was matter of time. Sad for the ppl of EOS.

[nikon50bigma]

Wow, so many airlines have gone belly up so to speak in 2008.

[DHG750R]

Very sad , I feel for the employees.. Guess that $50mil financing I read about Thursday fell thru.

[Alex T]

My turn to chime in...

I had just gone to visit my friend at EOS who is/was a F/A for them. We were discussing the 50 Mill and assumed it had gone through. This was to push them to 2009 and if DXB had not worked for them EOS was going to file CH11 anyway, just not this soon.

The financing that was supposed to happen I guess did not hence the expedidated filing of CH11.

My friend is currently working the 8:30pm departure out of JFK right now, and I am absolutely sick and gutted to find this out. Hopefully the best of luck to him and the many other EOS employees.

Alex

[Nonstop2AUH]

Sad for the employees but you could kind of see this coming, with their tiny niche and soaring fuel prices there were just no economies of scale to be able to work through the downturn. Would have been crazy for any investor to sink further capital into a situation like this. In recent weeks they had kept up the branding campaign, putting out alot of releases from the "lifestyle officer" and even producing a lifestyle magazine (future airline collectible for sure). While they were rebranding as the 'unairline,' it turns out even unairlines have to buy fuel and sell tickets, no hype machine (and they were really good at hype) can overcome that fact.

The financiers, lawyers and fashionista types who have been using Eos as their NY-London shuttle will either go private or, more likely (once they get over the shock of having to travel with people not like themselves), get reacquainted with the not-too-shabby offerings of BA Club and Virgin Upper Class. The other day I did a Kayak search on business class flights to London, and Eos was coming up for the first time as the cheapest. Guess you can post crazy prices for flights you know you are not likely to operate! In any event, perhaps they can keep the magazine going -- it is more likely to turn a profit than the airline would have been...

PS You can see the bankruptcy filing here:
http://www.kccllc.net/documents/9914000 ... 000003.pdf
Interesting to see who the creditors and owners are. Apparently an affiliate of the Qatar government had taken a 24% stake.

[JZ1]

would L'Avion be the next victim, too?

[Delta777LR]

Very sad to hear about this, I never saw that coming at all..

[Matt Molnar]

would L'Avion be the next victim, too?

That was my first thought too...having heard so little about them since their launch, I thought maybe they had died already and I had missed the bulletin. They're still alive, but I can't imagine they'd be doing any better than the London carriers, and probably a lot worse.

[Tom_Turner]

I imagine more airlines are going to go out of business; as are many other non aviation companies in the next few months. Forget niche players; United would have been out of business several times over by now had it not been repeatedly protected.

Tom

[mirrodie]

Surprised but not surprised, these niche carriers server a very limited market and with the economics of today's airline industry it was matter of time. Sad for the ppl of EOS.

I was thinking along the same lines. Its a good product but not at a good time.

[Matt Molnar]

Eos faced multiple negative influences. The most obvious is fuel costs. But then there's also the problems of their cornerstone market: linking the financiers of the world's two greatest financial hubs, Wall Street and Canary Wharf. With the sorry state of the finance industry, massive layoffs and a general struggle to turn a profit, it's safe to assume their travel budgets have taken a hit. A few firms canceling their contracts with Eos could have left their planes pretty empty. There's also the major problem of not one, but two competing services soon to be launched by British Airways, which has exponentially deeper pockets and vast marketing resources.

[Nonstop2AUH]

http://www.aviation.com/firstclass/0802 ... igger.html

Interesting read on where these guys thought they were just a couple of months ago. Either things turned on them really fast, or they were putting out a lot of wishful thinking, or probably both.

Of particular interest is the claim that they had 200 corporate contracts, including with "nine of the world's top 10 corporate banks." While on the surface that may have sounded reassuring, these contracts are not necessarily exclusive, apparently all but one of the bank contracts wasn't...i.e. 9 of the 10 contracts simply meant that Eos was an officially approved supplier for the banks (obviously, at a negotiated discount fare) along with others.