Since the financial crisis of 2008 each major western country lost two, three or four hand fulls of airlines. If you compare 12 airlines that went belly-up since then in the UK (Air Soutwest, BMED, bmi, bmibaby, city star, euromanx, FirstChoice, globespan, Highland, mytravel, silverjet and XL Airways) to the eight in Germany (Hamburg, OLT, LTU, XL, Augsburg, bluewings, contact and cirrus) or 10 in Italy and 11 in Spain to the major brand dissapperances in the US (Freedom, go!, Mesaba, midwest, north american, nwa, skybus, TED, US Airways, World, airtran, Aloha, ATA, Atlantic Southeast, Chalk's, Champion, Executive, USA 3000, Chautauqua, comair, Continental and Continental Micronesia), that makes 22 airlines gone in less then ten years in the US alone! Fewer new airlines popped up in the meantime, so consolidation is lasting, no?

lightmac wrote:

that makes 22 airlines gone in less then ten years in the US alone! Fewer new airlines popped up in the meantime, so consolidation is lasting, no?

The western economy has pretty much been stuck in a recession-like state for the past 10 years. I would expect that when the next big boom starts (whenever that is), then we will see a ton of new startups, of which most won't survive the subsequent recession.

Canada's lost Harmony, Skyservice and Zoom.

Some of these losses didn't go bankrupt, they merged with other airlines. NWA for example merged with Delta and as such it still exists, only the name doesn't anymore.

Here in the Netherlands I can think of Amsterdam Airlines and Denim Air that went bankrupt and of course Maastricht Airlines which went bankrupt even before the first flight ever took place. Surprisingly enough a lot of airlines went bankrupt around 2004/2005 such as Air Holland, HollandExel, DutchBird and Schreiner Airways.

Just looking at the UK list:
BMED didn't go bankrupt, the airline was sold to bmi.
bmi didn't go bankrupt, the airline was bought by Lufthansa who then sold it on to IAG/British Airways. They only really wanted the mainline division. The Regional division was sold on in turn and still trades under the bmi name.
bmibaby didn't go bankrupt. It passed to BA with its parent company. BA didn't want it and wasn't able to find anyone who wanted to buy it, so it was closed down in an orderly way - all bills and staff paid - this is not bankruptcy.
First Choice didn't go bust, it was sold to Thomson/TUI and the airline portion merged in to Thomson Airways. The holiday brand continues.
Mytravel is now Thomas Cook Airlines who still use the IATA code MT.

Then looking at some of the others: in the USA TED wasn't an actual airline, it was a brandname of UniTED, and United seem to be still around...
In Germany LTU merged with Air Berlin.

Kingfisher Airlines of India.

There is also the very sad story of VLM. Sold to KLM-AF in december 2007. It was then stripped from all its valuable assets and left with ACMI leases only. It eventually went bankrupt after a management buyout.

ACCS300 wrote:

Canada's lost Harmony, Skyservice and Zoom.

SkyService didn't go bankrupt. They merely shutdown part of their operations.

lightmac wrote:

Since the financial crisis of 2008 each major western country lost two, three or four hand fulls of airlines. If you compare 12 airlines that went belly-up since then in the UK (Air Soutwest, BMED, bmi, bmibaby, city star, euromanx, FirstChoice, globespan, Highland, mytravel, silverjet and XL Airways) to the eight in Germany (Hamburg, OLT, LTU, XL, Augsburg, bluewings, contact and cirrus) or 10 in Italy and 11 in Spain to the major brand dissapperances in the US (Freedom, go!, Mesaba, midwest, north american, nwa, skybus, TED, US Airways, World, airtran, Aloha, ATA, Atlantic Southeast, Chalk's, Champion, Executive, USA 3000, Chautauqua, comair, Continental and Continental Micronesia), that makes 22 airlines gone in less then ten years in the US alone! Fewer new airlines popped up in the meantime, so consolidation is lasting, no?

Eh, you're making this pretty dramatic.

North American, World and Champion were ACMI carriers that did alot of 135 flying. GO!, Skybus and USA3000 barely got off the ground. USA3K had 2 airplanes and skybus existed for about 2 months. ASA, Chat, Comair and Executive were contract regional carriers that were folded into other regional carriers. None were overly large carriers.

Losing US Air, Con, TWA, NWA etc.. Full network carriers, Those were loses.

Australia lost Ansett Australia, Australian Airlines (I think that's what they were called - with those vividly coloured 767's) and the airline wit in my opinion one of the best liveries EVER - impulse.

Continental, US Airways, AirTran?? Each of these merged or were bought out. Just because a a former airline brand airline isn't flying doesn't mean it went bankrupt.

Now, new starts like Skybus and PeopleExpress, well, that's different.

Others have already mentioned that many of the US airlines didn't go bankrupt, they just merged with others. I'd also point out that TED was never a company, it was just a separate paint scheme and sub-brand of United. The operation was just brought back into United mainline.

Mexico has lost quite a few in the last few years, all to bankruptcy and not mergers:

Aviacsa
Mexicana
Avolar
Alma de México
Republic Air

Technically, American Airlines/AMR filed for bankruptcy in 2011 (http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/29/news/companies/american_airlines_bankruptcy/), which led to its merger with US Airways -- taking the American name, but keeping mostly US management.

And virtually all the legacy U.S. carriers filed for bankruptcy in the decade before 2008 -- the only exceptions I can think of are American (which held off until 2011) and Alaska.

DY789 wrote:

Australia lost Ansett Australia, Australian Airlines (I think that's what they were called - with those vividly coloured 767's) and the airline wit in my opinion one of the best liveries EVER - impulse.

Australian Airlines was owned by Qantas, who decided to cease operating under that brand when they decided on the two airline strategy. Qantas decided to develop a low-cost airline instead: Jetstar, which was built on the basis of Impulse, the latter having been purchased by Qantas and absorbed into QantasLink. But all this occurred before 2008. The Impulse brand disappeared in 2004. The Australian Airlines brand disappeared in 2006 and its aircraft were absorbed into Qantas mainline.

India has had besides the famously infamous Kingfisher, Deccan 360, Air India Cargo, Aryan Cargo Express, Paramount Airways, Air Pegasus, MDLR Airlines and Air Mantra

lightmac wrote:

to the major brand dissapperances in the US (Freedom, go!, Mesaba, midwest, north american, nwa, skybus, TED, US Airways, World, airtran, Aloha, ATA, Atlantic Southeast, Chalk's, Champion, Executive, USA 3000, Chautauqua, comair, Continental and Continental Micronesia), that makes 22 airlines gone in less then ten years in the US alone!

It's more than 22. You forgot these in the U.S., also in the last 10 years:

Falcon Air Express
Island Airlines
New Mexico Airlines
Pacific Wings
US Airways, US Airways Express, US Airways Shuttle
AirTran
Era
Evergreen International
People Express 2014 edition
Sun Air International
World Airways
Cal Jet Air
Georgia Skies
MetJet
Pet
Ryan International
Colgan Air
Direct Air
Empire Airways
KentuckySkies
SeaCoast
Sky King
Streamline
TennesseeSkies
Aero Union
AirNow
Atlantic Southeast
Lynx
Arrow
Bimini Island Air
Florida Coastal
Freedom Airlines
Gulfstream International
Eos
Jet America
New England Air Transport
Primaris
Salmon Air
Air Midwest
Big Sky Airlines
Boston-Maine Airways
DayJet
Express.Net Airlines
Geo Air
Murray Air
Skyway Airlines
Tradewinds Airlines
Caribbean Sun
Maxjet Airways
RegionsAir
Skagway Air Service
Skyvalue
Western
Atlantic Coast
Hooters Air
Independence Air
MidAtlantic Airways
Planet
Platinum

Long lists of airline names no longer in use mean nothing (in the context of bankruptcies) without showing what happened to the business entities. In very many instances the airline was sold to or merged with/folded into one or more other businesses as already pointed out.

There is also the matter of the type of bankruptcy proceedings in the case of businesses that actually do "enter bankruptcy". Bankruptcies for the purpose of reorganization are not the same a bankruptcies for the purpose of liquidation. Firms that "emerge from bankruptcy" as reorganized businesses are not bankrupt.

DY789 wrote:

Australia lost Ansett Australia, Australian Airlines (I think that's what they were called - with those vividly coloured 767's) and the airline wit in my opinion one of the best liveries EVER - impulse.

NONE of these went bankrupt since 2008! There have been NO major airline bankruptcies since 2008 in Australia, there may have been some small ones but I can't think of any.
Ansett went bankrupt in the early 2000s, well before 2008. Australian Airlines was folded back into the parent QF and Impulse was purchased by QF and renamed Jetstar [eventually]

Gemuser

KruegerFlaps wrote:

Jetstar, which was built on the basis of Impulse, the latter having been purchased by Qantas and absorbed into QantasLink..

Impulse was never part of Qantaslink, because there is no such thing operationally or as a company as QantasLink, its a brand and marketing name only. The actual airlines are Eastern & Sunstate. Impulse kept its corporate identity through the AirConnex years when it acted like Qantaslink but was operationally separate, which it still is and later just changed its name to Jetstar...Gemuser

IPFreely wrote:

US Airways, US Airways Express, US Airways Shuttle
AirTran

US Airways (along with it's subsidiaries) didn't go bankrupt, they merged with American Airlines and continue flying under that name.
AirTran didn't go bankrupt, they merged with Southwest Airlines and continue flying under that name.

Varsity1 wrote:

Losing US Air, Con, TWA, NWA etc.. Full network carriers, Those were loses.

However out of those, NWA didn't go bankrupt. They just merged with Delta. The only loss is the brand name, but not the operations.

Other airlines I can think of that went bankrupt since 2008:

Malev (Hungary)
Spanair (Spain)
Transaero (Russia)
KD Avia (Russia)
SkyEurope (Slovakia)
Belle Air (Albany)
MyAir (Italy)

Ok, between a merger and a bankruptcy, there is a differnce. That is why the original post talks about "brand dissapperances" which summarizes both.

For Spain and Italy the "lost"-list looks like this:
Italy: AirOne, Air Vallee, eurofly, Air Europe, Flyonair, Itali, Lufthansa Italia, myAir, volareweb, windjet
Spain: clickair, Futura, GirJet, Hola, Iberworld, Islas, Lagun, LTE Volar, Quantum, Spanair, comet

I think we can add OA to the list in 2009. The legacy Olympic was grounded along with all the planes ( B737s and A343s) and created a new OA that was sold to an investement group that was branching into a lot of fields in Greece back then. The new Olympic went with the A320family and eventually in 2013 I think was sold to Aegean. The brand survives today but Aegean has kept it in use mostly for the use of billaterals and slots in the mega airports (LHR CDG FCO etc..)

Gemuser wrote:

DY789 wrote:

Australia lost Ansett Australia, Australian Airlines (I think that's what they were called - with those vividly coloured 767's) and the airline wit in my opinion one of the best liveries EVER - impulse.

NONE of these went bankrupt since 2008!

One that did go under after 2008 (2011 I think) was Air Australia, formerly Strategic Airlines before their short-lived rebrand.

Gemuser wrote:

Impulse was never part of Qantaslink, because there is no such thing operationally or as a company as QantasLink, its a brand and marketing name only. The actual airlines are Eastern & Sunstate. Impulse kept its corporate identity through the AirConnex years when it acted like Qantaslink but was operationally separate, which it still is and later just changed its name to Jetstar...Gemuser

I have a feeling that poster was getting wires crossed from the Impulse 717s mostly ending up at Cobham/Qantaslink after briefly rotating through Jetstar.

lightmac wrote:

Ok, between a merger and a bankruptcy, there is a differnce. That is why the original post talks about "brand dissapperances" which summarizes both.

That's true, however the topic title clearly says "Airline bankruptcies since 2008 per country".

If you got to list all the brands that have disappeared through mergers you'll be busy for quite a while, there are a whole lot of them. But I figure they're not that important because other than the brand name nothing is lost.

Sometimes you see temporary brand names that are sub-brands of existing airlines and mostly they're just temporary. I remember for example Basiqair (Transavia) and Blue Express (Blue Panorama). The sub-brands have gone, the operating airline is still around.

lightmac wrote:

Since the financial crisis of 2008 each major western country lost two, three or four hand fulls of airlines. If you compare 12 airlines that went belly-up since then in the UK (Air Soutwest, BMED, bmi, bmibaby, city star, euromanx, FirstChoice, globespan, Highland, mytravel, silverjet and XL Airways) to the eight in Germany (Hamburg, OLT, LTU, XL, Augsburg, bluewings, contact and cirrus) or 10 in Italy and 11 in Spain to the major brand dissapperances in the US (Freedom, go!, Mesaba, midwest, north american, nwa, skybus, TED, US Airways, World, airtran, Aloha, ATA, Atlantic Southeast, Chalk's, Champion, Executive, USA 3000, Chautauqua, comair, Continental and Continental Micronesia), that makes 22 airlines gone in less then ten years in the US alone! Fewer new airlines popped up in the meantime, so consolidation is lasting, no?

I do not want to check every airline on your list of bankruptcies, but you seem to include merged and airlines dissolved without bankruptcy.

The thread is somewhat confusing because the OP used "bankruptcy" in the title then listed "brand disappearances", which includes mergers. They are two different things but even then its something of a gray area. A lot of the airline brands that disappeared because of mergers were on the verge of bankruptcy and wouldn't have survived on their own.

Gemuser wrote:

DY789 wrote:

Australia lost Ansett Australia, Australian Airlines (I think that's what they were called - with those vividly coloured 767's) and the airline wit in my opinion one of the best liveries EVER - impulse.

NONE of these went bankrupt since 2008! There have been NO major airline bankruptcies since 2008 in Australia, there may have been some small ones but I can't think of any.
Ansett went bankrupt in the early 2000s, well before 2008. Australian Airlines was folded back into the parent QF and Impulse was purchased by QF and renamed Jetstar [eventually]

Gemuser

Ahh yes, of course they did, my bad, didn't really take in the '2008' part of the title....oops

Ansett first closed down on 9/14/2001 - although not directly 9/11/2001 related given earlier issues, it must have had some impact.

But no, nothing significant in Australia since 2008.

BAeRJ100 wrote:

Gemuser wrote:

DY789 wrote:

Australia lost Ansett Australia, Australian Airlines (I think that's what they were called - with those vividly coloured 767's) and the airline wit in my opinion one of the best liveries EVER - impulse.

NONE of these went bankrupt since 2008!

One that did go under after 2008 (2011 I think) was Air Australia, formerly Strategic Airlines before their short-lived rebrand.

Good point, although I don't think I'd call it a "major" airline.

Gemuser

I could say this thread is like a blunt pin......given some of the answers

Ghana Airways - ceased 2015
Olympic Airlines (formerly Airways) - ceased 2009
Trans Mediterranean Airways - ceased 2014 (for the second time)