George - agree. The first few years we flew them, they were excellent. I think the long haul between WDH and FRA is what financially killed them. PLUS the fact that they opened up the airport to other foreign flagged carriers (competition). I really believe it they would have skipped the that long haul route and just partnered with Lufthansa for the long haul and just stuck to domestic and regional they would have been fine. Instead they just became a constant drain on the govt for bailouts. Employees got pissed off because they didn't feel they were being paid enough and it just all started the decline into ruin.
They had entered into leases with a US based company for the three Airbus they were using on the long hauls. They started running into financial with those maybe 4-5 years ago. Started having to CNX flights from FRA because they could pay their landing fees and fuel bills. The scheduled maintenance was contracted out over in J'berg. Got to where they couldn't pay the maintenance bills and the company would release the aircraft. Just became very poorly managed over the years as more and more of the experienced management where replaced due to......well, you can figure that one out.
