No More Flies

This is late news, but heck, I had computer problems. If you have not heard the news yet, Hungarian state-owned Malev Hungarian Airlines (MA) ceased all operations early on Feb. 3 

Malév worked their way into insolvency and by Friday there was a cease and desist for all flights. Having been in operation for more than 60 years, they rewarded the last passengers, thousands of them in Budapest and other cities by stranding them. Passengers at the Budapest airport were informed that morning at 7:00 a.m. that all outbound flights were cancelled. Happy vacation to you! Talk about travel stress. 

Meanwhile, formerly budget airline Wizz Air announced an increase in flights. They will fly to Malaga, Cluj Napoca, Bucharest, Warsaw, Sofia, Larnaca, Heraklion, Zakynthos, Rhodes and Thessaloniki. Wizz has a habit of making many of these destinations summer only, so it is really nothing spectacular. 

Also on the airline front, my private student asked me to make a call for him after our lesson. This was a real switch. Usually it is I who asks him to make calls. He needed to call Expedia Travel Services in the US. He and his partner bought tickets to Ibiza for April, but bought the tickets back in November of last year. The routing is Lufthansa and Spanair. In January, Spanair quit flying after going bankrupt. According to Expredia, Spanair was paid directly, so the only recourse is to fight with the credit card company for a refund. He is hopeless that this will be effective, so they are preparing themselves for taking the loss.

Related articles

• Wizz Air invests $100 million to expand Budapest operations (atwonline.com)
• Hungarian airline Malev collapses (bbc.co.uk)
• RIP Malev and Spanair (flightwisdom.com)
• Defying logic. And gravity. (threeyearsonmars.com)
• Hundreds stranded after Malev grounds flights (telegraph.co.uk)
• Hungary's national airline ceases operations (foxnews.com)
• Malev loses survival battle (abtn.co.uk)

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