Vols Viking annulés ce week-end....

This month’s troubled airline

It’s September, so it must be airline failure time again. And the airline that might be in difficulties this week is FlyHellas, formerly Viking Hellas, formerly Viking. This was the bit of Viking that escaped bankruptcy last year. Now there are allegations that its planes are impounded at Athens Airport because of unpaid bills.
The main route was Manchester-Athens- various Iraqi regional airports, and it also did a fair amount of charter work for Olympic Holidays. There are vivid reports of confused Iraqis wandering around Manchester Airport.

The closure, whether it is temporary or permanent, of FlyHellas has caused major problems to Olympic Holidays. Some of the other airlines it charters have tried to fit extra trips in to cover the missing flights, with disastrous effects on the timekeeping of the entire charter flight programme. One Birmingham flight (not to Rhodes) was over a day late, and there have been similar effects at other airports. Some passengers have been returned to the UK to different airports than they started from, with coaches to return them to their starting point.