In the face of competition from Gulf-based carriers and European budget carriers, it’s been hard times for the familiar “national” airlines of Europe. Some, such as Sabena and Swissair have gone under, re-emerging in other forms; some, such as Alitalia have lurched from crisis to crisis and taken on investment from Gulf carriers.
In an interview with travel-industry news site Skift, Peter Davies, a veteran airline exec who was most recently head of Air Malta, suggests a more hopeful future in which the smaller carriers would combine management and purchasing and some operations, but continue to operate under their own names and with their own national “character” onboard…acting like one big hotel company with many brands, the wan Accor and Hilton do. It’s sort of a broader version of the bigger mergers that have seen British Air and Iberia in one company, and KLM and Air France in another.
