XL Airways joins the already long list of low cost airlines. On Thursday, she announced on her website suspend all ticket sales and asked her passengers to inquire for possible cancellations of flights, without further details.
In the process, the leaders of the company have seized the Commercial Court of Bobigny to request its placement in receivership. XL Airways, which operates flights between Paris and several US cities (New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami), employs more than 570 people.
The news did not come as a surprise in the airline industry. Chronically deficient, the company was looking for several months a buyer likely to bring him fresh capital. Redeemed in 2016 by the consortium of shareholders who owned the all-business company The Company, which had invested more than $ 80 million, XL Airways had never come out of the red. The CEO Laurent Magnin had engaged in 2018 negotiations with Air France which had not succeeded; the rise in fuel prices and especially the arrival of new competitors on the transatlantic low cost – Norwegian and Level and more recently Corsair and French Bee – have aggravated the financial situation of the company.
At the end of August, XL executives announced that they were in negotiations with two potential buyers, including an airline. The discussions could not be concluded quickly enough to avoid this judicial procedure, but a recovery is not excluded. This placement under judicial protection could even allow one of the prospective candidates to resume the round at a lower cost. A first hearing is scheduled this Monday at the court of Bobigny. Time is running out: a prolonged shutdown of the company's operations would condemn her for good.
For its part, La Compagnie has announced that it is not concerned by these difficulties. With two new A 321 Neo jets in the air since the beginning of the summer, and having launched a new New York-Nice route, the all-business company has retained the support of its shareholders.
