Grounded: Defunct Airlines of the World Quiz

Answer: Pan American

Pan American World Airways - "Pan Am" - first flew in 1927 and ceased operations in 1991.

For many of those years Pan Am was an innovator, graduating from flying boats serving routes from Florida to Latin America to leading the way in jet travel.

Pan Am became the first to use the Boeing 747, but by the end of the 1970s things began to look less rosy. High fuels costs hampered their operations. The company also was not permitted to operate domestic routes, so that was a revenue stream lost.

In 1988 the terrorist attack that brought down Pan Am Flight 103, "Clipper Maid Of The Seas", a 747, over Lockerbie, Scotland, resulted in a $300m lawsuit. Some rivals claimed that Pan Am was losing $3 million a day in 1991.

Answer: Skytrain

Laker promised that his fleet of McDonnell Douglas DC-10s would provide travel across the Atlantic for half the price of competitors.

Unfortunately, the airline collapsed with £270 million of debt in February 1982.

Fifty years on, Sir Freddie's dreams of low-cost travel have come to fruition, at least in domestic and medium range markets.

It took until 2015 before a transatlantic low-cost service was renewed, when Norwegian Air began to operate a service between Europe and the Americas.

Answer: Interflug

Interflug was formed in 1958 to succeed Deutsche Lufthansa. In its early years, Interflug mainly used Soviet-built aircraft and flew to Warsaw Bloc countries and to China.

For many of those years, East Germans were banned from leaving their own country. Interflug began to offer flights to West Germans to Mediterranean destination. They travelled across the 'wall' by shuttle bus to the airport at Schönefeld.

In 1991, the "New York Times" reported that Interflug had flown for the last time, having failed to find a buyer on the international market.

Flug is a German translation for "flight". "Weltraumflug" is literally "space flight".

Answer: Swissair

Swissair was founded in 1931, but in the 1980s and 1990s embarked on an investment programme in other airlines.

With its finances stretched too thinly, Swissair collapsed in 2002. The assets were transferred to its subsidiary, Crossair, which became known as Swiss International Air Lines.

The wrong answers are all defunct African airlines.

Answer: Monarch

According to the "Economist" magazine, Monarch was at that time the largest airline to fail in the UK.

Founded in 1967, Monarch was one of the leading players in the UK's holidays sector. When it creased flying, Monarch had debts of £466m.

Increased fuel prices, increased competition, and the collapse of holiday travel in places like Egypt and Turkey after terrorism attacks were among the factors cited for Monarch's collapse

Answer: Ansett Australia

Ansett Australia was founded in 1936 and became Australia's second biggest carrier. It ceased operations in September 2001 with debts of $A3 billion.

While Australian politicians and the media blamed Ansett managers, other observers said policies of successive governments had opened the wounds. The governments had attempted to imitate the open skies policies of deregulation that had worked in the USA, but a smaller population and wider-dispersed destinations meant that competition did not work in Australia.

Air New Zealand bought Ansett in 2000 and tried to cut Ansett's costs. When Ansett failed in 2001, the New Zealand government had to bail out Air New Zealand by investing NZ$885 million to prevent it collapsing too.

Answer: Aloha Airlines

Aloha was founded in 1946 and had been based at Honolulu. It flew routes to the US West Coast and to other islands in the Pacific.

High fuel prices and a fare war with a rival were cited among the reasons Aloha failed in 1988.

The cargo business was acquired by another company to continue to fly as Aloha Air Cargo.

Answer: Air Berlin

Air Berlin was founded in 1978 and became Germany's second largest carrier and the fourth-largest in Europe.

By 2017 it was losing money heavily and its main shareholders, Etihad Airways, refused to put in any more than the $3bn it had already given..

In 2018, news outlets reported that creditors were selling off the airline's entire inventory - "from coffee mugs to a six-metre model A320 and everything in between."

Answer: Northwest

Northwest was among the pioneers of civil air transport when it was founded in 1926. Its first flights carried mail between Minneapolis/St Paul and Chicago. Passenger services to Chicago began the following year.

Growth was rapid and in 1979 Northwest began transatlantic services to Sweden and Denmark.

But 10 years later, Northwest was struggling under the weight of debt of new acquisitions. The investment of public funds and an agreement by pilots and other employees for $980 million in wage and benefits concessions staved off collapse in the early 1990s.

A strike by pilots in 1998 and the general collapse in air travel post 9/11 hit Northwest. Other world events outwith its control also hit hard.

Despite cutting jobs and services, in 2005, Northwest filed for bankruptcy and in 2008 merged with Delta.

Answer: Eastern

Money was not Eastern's only problems: aircraft safety and flight reliability were frequently questioned.

Eastern was one of four main mail carriers in the USA in the 1920s.

Eastern struggled in the 1980s in the face of low-cost competition after the deregulation of the US air passenger market. After bankruptcy, Eastern became part of Delta.

On January 12th, 2020, a 'new' Eastern returned to the skies, with plans for flights from Miami to several central American countries.

Writing in "View From The Wing" in 2019, Gary Leff opined: "It's been nearly 30 years since the 'real' Eastern flew, and it didn't have a good reputation even then - for reliability, for service, or even for safety (having received the largest fine in aviation history for safety-related violations, until a larger one was leveled on American 19 years after Eastern's collapse)."

Answer: Transaero

Transaero was founded in 1990 and became one of Russia's largest privately-owned airlines. It served 150 domestic and international destinations but collapsed in 2015 with debts of $4bn.

Two Boeing 747-8 airliners on order but not delivered at the time of the failure were to be converted for use of the US presidents, "Business Insider" and BBC News reported at the time.

The planes, there are always two identical airframes, were scheduled for a 2024 delivery at a cost of $3.9bn the incumbent president said in June 2019 - though delivery may come too late for him to use.

Answer: Mexicana

Along with its subsidiaries, Mexicana had a mixed fleet of 130 Boeing and Airbus aircraft and serviced 80 destinations. It flew out of Mexico City to north and south America, the Caribbean, and Europe.

When it failed, Mexicana owed Mexican banks at least 2.5 billion pesos (US$199 million). The company had demanded pay cuts among pilots and flight crews, who had already given up $48 million between 2006 and 2010.

Answer: Thomas Cook

The British Thomas Cook business was 178 years old when it failed to secure emergency funding to keep on going.

The company was a major player in the holidays industry and also had its own-brand travel agencies and airlines.

Writing in "The Guardian" newspaper in September 2019, Nils Pratley said: "Brexit, risk-averse banks, summer heatwaves, the rise of Airbnb, the long-term triumph of budget airlines. All contributed to the collapse of Thomas Cook."

Pratley also identified something that we have seen with other airlines in this quiz - a company overstretching itself financially.

The British government picked up the tab for flying home holidaymakers who had been stranded abroad when the company closed.

Answer: Kingfisher

Kingfisher was founded in 2005 and was noted for its colourful aircraft and a top-rate service.

Initially, Kingfisher went for the premium end of air travel but then started to chase the low-cost market. With mounting debts, the owners asked for a bail-out by the Indian government, which declined. By October 2012 it was so heavily in debt and the Government of India cancelled its operating licence.

Answer: WOW Air

Founded in 2012, the Icelandic carrier collapsed in March 2019. It operated flights between Europe and North America via its hub at Keflavik, Iceland.

In an interview with "The Financial Times", WOW Air CEO Skuli Mogensen blamed their failure on the decision to order widebody Airbus A330s. The airline had wanted to add as many as 15 destinations in Asia.

Skuli Mogensen said that as oil prices rose in 2018: "it was clear that we needed to change course fast. In retrospect the wide-body decision unfortunately turned out to be fatal."

They returned their A330s and tried to restructure. The airline was $150 million in debt at the end, with no one willing to put more money in.