After 66 years of almost continuous operations, MALEV Hungarian Airlines stopped all flights as of 0600 this morning.
It is always a sad day when an airline stops operations, just like when any well known, big company closes its doors. There can be no doubt that most of us are reading the news of MALEV’s demise with tears in our eyes. We feel with those whose job has suddenly gone up in thin air. But!
It is important to ensure now that in these critical times emotions are not allowed to dominate and perhaps even more important to avoid the political mud slinging, so popular in Hungary these days. What has befallen Malev is in part indeed due to incorrect political decisions but it is much more important to recognize that MALEV, like many other European airlines, has failed to implement the necessary structural changes, that its efficiency was way below what is possible these days and that these were the reasons why they were not able to find a buyer for the company.
MALEV may have been an object of national pride, but in the meantime nobody bothered with the much more important task of implementing the changes required to make it a more efficient operation. Nobody had the courage to rationalize the number of people working there and to take honest account of what kind of airline would be able to operate profitably from Budapest. Why did they have to refuse a recent Spanish offer that would have converted Malev into a low cost carrier? Just one of the many screw-ups…
In line with the political fashion popular in Hungary, many will now think that the failure of MALEV is due to yet another attack on the Hungarians by the West, that the national airline was killed by its competitors or even the EU itself (which is insisting in illegal State aid given to the company being paid back). However, it is essential that everyone get rid of this, totally unfounded, line of thinking. MALEV is not the only airline that went bust (Swissair, Sabena, Pan Am, Spanair are other examples). Airlines are extremely competitive businesses and while state aid is being pumped into some companies, they remain afloat but once called upon to survive in the real world of flying, a lot of them are forced to face reality in no time at all.
Companies which were able to adapt to the new circumstances, which were able to offer products for which there was a demand, were able to survive but even among those not everyone was able to keep their independence. These days almost all European airlines are owned by one of the three big airline conglomerates (Air France-KLM, Lufthansa or International Airline Group, this latter being British Airways and Iberia). Those outside this elite group are fighting for survival.
Since no other company wanted to buy MALEV (for good commercial reasons no doubt) and since a company of this size will always have a hard time surviving even if it is highly rationalized (something MALEV has never carried through in a meaningful way), failure was more or less unavoidable.
At the same time we must remember that the disappearance of an underperforming company opens up scores of opportunities for other, better enterprises. What is more, clearing the filed like this can even open the door for a new “MALEV” which will be able to compete much more effectively on its own or, more likely, as part of another company.
So, let this sad day be the anniversary not that of a botched landing but a nicely performed missed approach when we look back on 3 February 2012 in a couple of years’ time.