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Aegean might be (partially) nationalised!

Aegean might be (partially) nationalised!

Old May 8, 2020, 6:10 am
  #16  
 
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Professor

Originally Posted by DrHalxx
There are rumours on greek travel media that Aegean needs a bailout and one of the possible solutions is partial nationalisation. This was mentioned recently by the CEO. I'm not suprised....
  • airlines provide a service to the people. Therefore they should be owned by the people that is the government however run by professionals not politicians. Yes nationalize all airlines
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Old May 8, 2020, 6:16 am
  #17  
 
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Originally Posted by spartaboy
  • airlines provide a service to the people. Therefore they should be owned by the people that is the government however run by professionals not politicians. Yes nationalize all airlines
So do a lot of things...

Nationalise al bakers?
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Old May 8, 2020, 6:20 am
  #18  
 
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Originally Posted by spartaboy
  • airlines provide a service to the people. Therefore they should be owned by the people that is the government however run by professionals not politicians. Yes nationalize all airlines
Your internet service provider and your mobile phone carrier provides a more substantive service to the overall public; should that be nationalised also?
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Old May 8, 2020, 8:32 am
  #19  
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Originally Posted by spartaboy
  • airlines provide a service to the people. Therefore they should be owned by the people that is the government however run by professionals not politicians. Yes nationalize all airlines
Governments also provide a service to the people. Additionally, they control the flow of vast amounts of money - both incoming and outgoing.

Therefore - who should own them? And who should run them? Professionals, not politicians, too?

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Old May 8, 2020, 12:34 pm
  #20  
 
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Aegean should get no govt support

The Greek government has been reducing the people's pensions over the past decade or so and even with all the new higher imposed taxes it does not have the funds for such misplaced adventures.
It's hardly able to pay its own loans and now with the coming tourism collapse its GDP will take a very serious hit that will make servicing the government's existing loans far more difficult.
If it goes on with another pension reduction there will be a people's revolt and serious political instability, the last thing Greece needs right now with its new government.
Many hotels in Greece will go under with the coming tourism collapse this summer that may continue next summer.
Should the Greek government bail out all these hotels too, never mind all the other economy sectors that depend on the tourism? It just can't afford to.
There are far better uses for Greek government funds such as fixing the miserable state of health care in the country, etc.
Aegean will find funds in the open money markets, and that will help especially now with interest rates near 0%.
Even if Aegean restructures under bankruptcy it'll be able to continue as an ongoing concern with a smaller network.
Even if it completely ceases operations, it's almost guaranteed that other entrepreneurial Greeks will get together, take over the assets, and form a new or renewed airline.
It may even involve Aegean's current management and investors.
But it's almost certain that there'll be a similar airline serving Greece with no government help or with certain investment tax incentives.
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Old May 8, 2020, 12:57 pm
  #21  
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Been following this sub-forum for a while now, you can definitely find some interesting opinions here. If you check Aegean's 2019 balance sheet, you'll see they are pretty OK with unrestricted cash. Not saying airline industry can't burn through enormous amounts of money in a short time, but Aegean will be fine. Of course, they'll try to present their situation worse than it is so they can get every possible tax cut they can. But I'm thinking their main goal is the EU-wide PSO tender that is scheduled for this year. With smaller Greek airlines most likely going under, Aegean will push for Greece to force the EU to cool down on competition demands in the domestic market and they'll rake in exuberant amounts of money for PSO routes. And then they'll definitely breeze through the crisis.
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Old May 8, 2020, 1:29 pm
  #22  
 
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For those here not aware of PSO mentioned by the above poster:

https://simpleflying.com/public-serv...are-protected/

Note the sentence below:
"The funding comes from the EUs mobility and transport budget, which every member state contributes as part of Europes social and economic development."
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Old May 8, 2020, 6:52 pm
  #23  
 
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Also Aegean has a vast network and is obviously one of the more important Greek airlines therefore rising to an important national interest.
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Old May 8, 2020, 7:11 pm
  #24  
 
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So many truths in these recent posts! Yes, indeed, OA, OTE (ex Phone monopolist), Hellenic Post, Rail system, the banks, ΔΕΗ (Power company) and, last not least, the health system (cit. in post #20 ), all great examples of how efficiently all Governments managed all of of them when they were all property of the Greek people!
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Old May 8, 2020, 7:16 pm
  #25  
 
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Originally Posted by jimbous
For those here not aware of PSO mentioned by the above poster:

https://simpleflying.com/public-serv...are-protected/

Note the sentence below:
"The funding comes from the EUs mobility and transport budget, which every member state contributes as part of Europes social and economic development."
Is there any more information on the EU wide PSO tender?
Not much about that in the link.
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Old May 8, 2020, 8:02 pm
  #26  
 
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Here is a list of the EU PSO routes.
Quite a few in Greece.
But many more in France and Spain.

https://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes...-market/pso_en

https://ec.europa.eu/transport/sites...tory_table.pdf

Click on the Invitation to tender for each notice for details.
Perhaps the person who commented on this year's upcoming PSO tender can offer more details (#21 above).

Last edited by jimbous; May 8, 2020 at 8:20 pm
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Old May 9, 2020, 3:08 am
  #27  
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Originally Posted by atothepoweroftwo
But I'm thinking their main goal is the EU-wide PSO tender that is scheduled for this year. With smaller Greek airlines most likely going under, Aegean will push for Greece to force the EU to cool down on competition demands in the domestic market and they'll rake in exuberant amounts of money for PSO routes. And then they'll definitely breeze through the crisis.
That's an unrealistic goal, and not one that would save Aegean.

The Greek government has already advertised tender on 14 routes in March, with the deadline already passed on April 30. [1], [2]

Olympic already has the tender for several PSO routes. Even if they were to take over all 28 routes currently with a PSO tender in Greece, none of the routes would warrant use of Aegean's A319/A320/A321s. The only aircraft currently used on PSO routes in Greece are the Dash 8-100/Q400s and ATR42s of Olympic's fleet, as well as the ΒΑΕ JS41and ATR42s of SkyExpress's fleet, and the BAE 146/300s and ATR42s of Astra Airlines' fleet.

Of the PSO routes operated by Olympic in 2018, the route with the highest per-passenger subsidy was Rhodes-Kastelorizo at €301.86 per passenger; the route with the lowest per-passenger subsidy was Athens-Zakynthos at €12.34 per passenger.

Fewer than 790,000 passengers were carried on Greece's 28 PSO routes in 2018, with Sky Express's Thessaloniki-Skyros being the least used, with only 268 passengers, and Athens-Paros operated by both Sky Express and Olympic carrying the most, with 175,254 passengers.

Note also that there are regulations regarding the imposition of PSO designation on routes; and additionally, such routes must be out to tender, at Community level, so that any EU airline can tender to operate these routes anywhere in Europe. As such, no government can simply designate routes as PSO routes, and award them to a home carrier, as a de-facto means of "subsidising" the airline directly.
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Last edited by irishguy28; May 9, 2020 at 3:21 am
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Old May 9, 2020, 7:51 am
  #28  
 
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Yes, supporting local airlines through PSO-s with the current EC 1008/2008 ruling is rather difficult and uneffective.... I'm pretty sure asking permission for state aid is currently many times easier.
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Old May 9, 2020, 9:29 am
  #29  
 
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Originally Posted by irishguy28
...{snip}...and ATR42s of Astra Airlines' fleet...{snip}...
Astra stopped flying last fall! They said, back then, that they'd come back but this was months before the Covid-19 crisis.
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Old May 11, 2020, 7:45 am
  #30  
 
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Aegean will be fine, I wouldn't worry. They were far too successful to go down
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