LEVEL Europe, sister airline of British Airways, becomes IAG’s first coronavirus casualty

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• Marc Rensing says:

  18 Jun18 June 12:32

  Rather than Coronavirus, isn’t it because the Austrian government implemented minimum fare, making Level’s operation not viable

  • Rob says:

    18 Jun18 June 12:39

    Minimum fare rules were just around not being able to sell tickets below the level of airport taxes, which I doubt had as much impact as people think. Added it in as an extra line though.

    • marcw says:

      18 Jun18 June 12:43

      It needs to go through Parliament first (or whatever they have in Austria).

      • Don says:

        18 Jun18 June 17:48

        It’s a far-right Government.

        • Marcel says:

          18 Jun18 June 19:51

          It’s actually not a far-right government but rather a coalition between the Conservative Party (they are a bit populist these days but by no means as much as the Conservatives in the UK) and the Green Party, The minimum fare was introduced so the Green Party is able to sell it as their success.

        • w says:

          18 Jun18 June 23:40

          that’s hardly fair with a conservative & green party coalition in government, and the right-wing/nationalist FPO party for once left out.

• marcw says:

  18 Jun18 June 12:44

  Also, Iberia is retiring about a third of their long haul planes. All 14 Airbus 340-600 are going to be retired from service this july-august.

• Nick_C says:

  18 Jun18 June 13:43

  Not assisting customers who have already booked is extremely damaging to the reputation of IAG IMO.

  Makes them look like a dodgy company who goes bust and restarts with a new name the next day.

  Who will they do this to next? Aer Lingus? City Flyer?

  I hope credit card companies will look carefully at whether or not to hand over payments to IAG brands.

  • John T says:

    18 Jun18 June 14:37

    I doubt many affected passengers will even know what IAG is, let alone let this influence which subsidiary airlines they book with in the future.

    • Paul74 says:

      18 Jun18 June 20:17

      Indeed.

• C77 says:

  18 Jun18 June 14:32

  My heart is bleeding – cue Air Europa to enter stage left. There is your simplification.
  I’ll even go as far to predict the next phase:
  IB to merge IB Express into their shorthaul programme for a new ‘premium’ brand in European air travel…

  • Rhys says:

    18 Jun18 June 14:35

    Air Europa serves a Spanish base whilst LEVEL Europe operated a handful of flights from Amsterdam and Vienna. Not a huge amount of crossover.

    • C77 says:

      18 Jun18 June 14:52

      Although Level as a brand never did achieve much did it. Remembered for their €0.01 flights and little else. Getting rid of the brand doesn’t really impact that much in the greater scheme. It also leaves a space for a new brand at the IAG arena…. Paging Air Europa

      • Rhys says:

        18 Jun18 June 14:53

        The LEVEL brand is staying. As I mentioned in the article, it is only LEVEL Europe, which operated short haul flights from Vienna and Amsterdam, that has gone bust. LEVEL continues as a brand in Spain and France.

        • Rob says:

          18 Jun18 June 15:32

          …. for now!

        • Spaghetti Town says:

          18 Jun18 June 17:10

          If Norwegian were to go under you might see Level magically being merged back into Iberia.

        • Rhys says:

          18 Jun18 June 23:58

          I think if the Norwegian government and other investors/creditors were to let Norwegian go bust it would have happened already….

        • Michael C says:

          18 Jun18 June 17:24

          I’m sending a freelancer collaborator to a conf. BCN-BOS – offered to get her a BA ticket via LHR but she preferred the direct flight on Level…we’ll see!

      • C77 says:

        18 Jun18 June 14:55

        Regardless to what the product offers does now or in the past has nothing to do with future aspirations. I would also wager that the Air Europa brand finds more affinity in name with Austrians than Level ever did.

• ChrisBCN says:

  18 Jun18 June 22:03

  I always did find it odd that IAG had two non-legacy brands for their European ‘low cost’ flights. I always put it down to the fact that no one could pronounce Vueling so Level had to be created…

  Would be easy for them to restart from Vienna and Amsterdam if they choose to in a year or two, using Vueling or Europa. After the Europa buy goes through, maybe they turn Europa into a low cost, replacing Vueling (brand recognition is as good in Spain) with Iberia taking over the more premium parts of Europa.

• Remainder2 says:

  19 Jun19 June 00:22

  I had a LEVEL flight in May which was cancelled from AMS to LTN. Very late in the day cancellation considering that Europe was paralysed by then but it came in the end. A quick call to customer service and the money was back in my account within days with minimal hassle. Very unexpected given the information on the website about coronavirus flexibility was scarce and only really focused on the long haul routes.

  You can’t help but feel sorry for those loosing their jobs though this.

• Tom says:

  19 Jun19 June 03:31

  The cynical part of me says it’s WW sending a message to the BA unions

• Annih says:

  19 Jun19 June 06:19

  Greedy billionaires. Trap up your own share base before hitting tax payers.

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