Skymark's shares plunge 25% after filing for bankruptcy protection

Good news for LCC competitors.

Another one bites the dust!

I'm curious whether the landing slots that Skymark owns revert back to the airport/government, or whether the eventual liquidators of Skymark can sell them on to the highest bidder? If they can be sold, I doubt that any LLC will match the prices that JAL and ANA will be willing to pay.

More like MCC-Mid Cost Carrier

It used to be the only one but Peach, Jetstar and Air Asia are much cheaper and often have bargain sales. Skymark has cheaper seats exactly 2 months before the departure date but only 5 seats available for the cheaper cost which sell out quickly. The rest of the prices are no different from JAL or ANA.

The paper this morning showed Skymark as having made large profits in 2012 and a small loss in 2013. I'm surprised that they are suddenly in trouble, given that fuel prices are falling. I think this bankruptcy move is a ruse to avoid paying Airbus any of the cancellation penalty.

Let them fail on their own.

Couple of quick points.

Skymark was born out of the half-hearted attempt to deregulate domestic air travel in the 90s. Those measures, however, were little more than lip service being paid to certain critics of Japan's airline industry. Skymark and Air-Do never really received a fair shake in the market place. I seem to remember they were given a handful of slots at Haneda, routes to Kyushu and Hokkaido, and basically left to their own devices. Considering such factors I'm surprised they lasted this long. Skymark is not a national flag carrier like JAL. As such, there will not be a public bailout. There is a lot more to this story than meets the eye. Although the CEO has resigned, he has a lot of explaining to do (as do other board members) regarding the folly of this Airbus deal. Despite being a rather small player in the Japanese market, I remember reading some of the figures in the Airbus deal and believing they were crazy, as in divorced from reality crazy. This story still has a long way to run.

Airbus has shot itself in the foot. ANA and JAL will look at this and order Boeing aircraft.

Airbus has shot itself in the foot. ANA and JAL will look at this and order Boeing aircraft.

Why do you say that? Are you suggesting that Airbus shouldn't try to collect damages resulting from the A380 contract and that Boeing would have just let is slide?

I think both Boeing and Airbus shareholders would probably sue the directors for breaching their fiduciary duties if they just wrote off $700 million belonging to the shareholders.

Don't know about letting companies of the hook, etc., but there does seem to be a certain fluidity in international airline sales. When airline travel is up, international carriers place orders like there is no tomorrow. When things hit the skids, orders are often pulled. Although I appreciate that fines and penalties are an issue, I cannot get my head around the idea of Airbus agreeing to such a big contract with such a small player in the first place. As I wrote above, I get the impression that this story still has a way to run. Moreover, the board at Skymark were obviousl drinking massive amounts of Kool Aid. The flipside, however, is that you have to ask the question why did Airbus get in so deep with such a small carrier. You might follow that question with would they act so heavy-handed if the airline company in question was one of the big boys?