42 VICTIMS OF PANDEMIC: WHAT AIRLINES HAVE BEEN DRIVEN INTO BANKRUPTCY

Aviation has undoubtedly been one of the main victims of the COVID-19 pandemic. Only the sector of tourism can boast of comparable data on the amount of financial damage.  However, as evidenced by the data presented by the specialists of the analytical company Cirium, the number of air carriers that went bankrupt turned out to be much less than before for the previous year.

42 airlines went bankrupt in 2020. This is less than not only the record number of aviation industry enterprises that went bankrupt in 2018 (then there were 56), but also less than the number of registered bankrupt airlines in 2019 (there were 46 of them).

The reason for this, according to experts, was the measures of state regulation and moratoriums imposed on bankruptcy in different countries of the world.

At the same time, as experts emphasize, the terms of bans on bankruptcy in a number of countries have already expired, or are about to expire.

Another important factor that softened the process of going bankrupt for many organizations was government support measures. In the most developed countries of the EU and the UK, significant sums of money have been allocated from the budget to help air carriers. For example, the German airline Lufthansa received about € 9 billion from the German government. At the same time, the state became one of the main shareholders of the national air carrier, having bought 20% of the company's shares.

According to the Cirium's calculations, while fewer companies went bankrupt than before, the number of aircraft previously used by failed companies was significant.

If in 2019 there were 406 liners at the disposal of bankrupts, then in 2020 there are already 485.

The leader in the number of airline bankruptcies was the United States, where 9 companies went bankrupt at once: Compass Airlines, Expressjet, Miami Air International, Nantucket Express, Ravn Alaska, Shoreline Aviation, Virgin Atlantic. Despite the measures taken by the state, three air carriers went bankrupt in Germany (Germanwings, SunExpress, Eurowings). In many countries (Australia, Ecuador, South Africa, Japan) several companies have failed at once.