It was announced last Thursday 3rd May, that Cimber Sterling declared bankruptcy after its owners, Mansvell Enterprises Ltd decided not to continue financial support for the company. Carriers such as DAT, Sun Air, Norwegian and Skyways have all been quick to react and Flybe Nordic is primed to take advantage of Cimber Sterling’s demise.

Although Cimber Sterling has announced bankruptcy it is apparently still operating five CRJ200s for SAS on a wet-lease basis until the 17thMay to enable time for SAS to source additional capacity. It is also believed that Flybe Nordic executives have held talks with the administrators to take on the ATRs and some staff to establish operations in Denmark.

However, Flybe Nordic may have to see off some of the new entrants on Cimber Sterling’s routes with many of the city pairs being picked up by other carriers.

According to OAG for the week 16-22ndApril Cimber Sterling operated 18 destinations from Copenhagen, including domestic points such as Aalborg, Aarhus, Billund, Bornholm and Sonderborg. The rest of the destinations are international services with a mix of city break and sunshine destinations in Spain, Sweden, Italy, Czech Republic, France, Turkey, Portugal and Greece. The table below shows the weekly frequency and capacity from Copenhagen, Billund and Aalborg.

In terms of the carrier that have moved quickly, British Airways franchise carrier Sun-Air of Scandinavia announced this week it is to begin Oslo – Aalborg and Oslo – Billund services twice daily. DAT announced it is to serve Copenhagen to Sonderborg and Bornholm, while Norwegian announced a number of new frequencies out of Copenhagen including the following destinations previously served by Cimber Sterling: Barcelona, Rome, Malaga, Palma, Nice and Prague. Skyways has started Copenhagen to Norrkoping and Billund to Stockholm Arlanda.

So Flybe Nordic will have to compete on most of the former Cimber Sterling routes and will have the challenge of establishing the Flybe Nordic brand in the crowded Danish marketplace.

Cimber Sterling Weekly Frequency 16-22nd April 2012 from Copenhagen, Billund and Aalborg

Links to rest of The HUB stories for the week...