In accordance with Czech insolvency law, the national airline CSA is in receivership to the Prague Municipal Court at the end of February. The court officially recognised the company's bankruptcy.
The request for reorganisation was made after the end of an extraordinary moratorium and after all possible solutions had been exhausted. resolve a difficult financial situation caused by the pandemic.
Unlike other national carriers in Europe, thehe populist Czech government has refused to come to the aid of the company. At the end of August 2020, Czech Airlines and its parent company Smartwings asked the Czech government to implement a "COVID-air transport" compensation programme. The country's hotel industry, for example, had benefited from such a programme.
An inflexible Czech government
They also called for a financial support to cover almost 7,200 flights cancelled during the state of emergency between March and May 2020. The government rejected the request on the grounds that it would distort competition.
In 2020, the company recorded a loss of 66 million euros. Some 230,000 passengers are still waiting for a refund.
For the time being, the Smartwings group continues to fly its two companies, CSA and Smartwings. CSA recently withdrew all its ATR aircraft. It now operates with just two aircraft, an Airbus A319 and an Airbus A320..
According to information published on its website, CSA still flies to Paris five times a week. However, it has suspended services to Brussels, Frankfurt, Geneva and London. Smartwings and CSA were serving 11 destinations from Prague in 2020.
