Major airline bankruptcies in Europe: from Swissair to Alitalia

An aircraft that stood at the gate yesterday is bankruptcy estate today. For passengers, an airline bankruptcy is mainly an annoyance; for spotters, it is a turning point: a familiar livery disappears, registrations change hands, and photos from the last few weeks become archive material overnight. This overview shows you the big European cases from Swissair to Alitalia, what they have in common and where you can still find their traces today.

The big bankruptcies at a glance

Between 2001 and 2021, several airlines that had been part of everyday life at airports for decades disappeared in Europe. The six best-known cases compared:

Airline	Country	End	Trigger	What remained
Swissair	Switzerland	Grounding Oct. 2, 2001, operations until Mar. 31, 2002	Liquidity crisis of the SAirGroup after 9/11	Swiss, based on Crossair
Sabena	Belgium	Bankruptcy, operations ended Nov. 7, 2001	Loss of its partner Swissair	SN Brussels Airlines, now Brussels Airlines
Air Berlin	Germany	Insolvency filing Aug. 15, 2017, last flight Oct. 27, 2017	Withdrawal of major shareholder Etihad	Parts to the Lufthansa Group and easyJet
Germania	Germany	Insolvency filing Feb. 4, 2019, operations stopped immediately	lack of financing	Swiss offshoot as Chair Airlines
Thomas Cook Airlines	United Kingdom	Sept. 23, 2019	Compulsory liquidation of the parent group	Sister airline Condor keeps flying
Alitalia	Italy	last flight Oct. 14, 2021	Permanent crisis, special administration since 2017	ITA Airways with code AZ

Swissair 2001: the “flying bank” without fuel

For decades, Swissair was regarded as the epitome of punctuality and solid finances; the nickname “flying bank” was no accident. At the end of the 1990s, however, the group holding company, renamed SAirGroup in 1997, took a risky course. Instead of joining a big alliance, it wanted to buy together its own partners with the so-called Hunter strategy. Besides its stake in Sabena, the group took stakes in airlines such as LTU, AOM and Air Liberté – many of them financially weak. The losses of these holdings dragged the parent group down with them.

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, demand collapsed and the coffers were empty. On October 2, 2001, fuel suppliers refused to refuel without advance payment, and all flight operations came to a standstill. Aircraft stood on the ground from Zurich to New York, and passengers and crews were stranded. The grounding is still considered one of the most spectacular corporate collapses in Switzerland.

From October 5, 2001, Swissair kept flying on a reduced scale thanks to an emergency loan from the federal government. In parallel, banks and the state built a new airline out of the regional subsidiary Crossair. On April 1, 2002, Swiss International Air Lines took over most of the routes, aircraft and staff, and the last Swissair scheduled flight landed the same day from São Paulo in Zurich. In 2005, Lufthansa took a stake in Swiss, and in 2007 it acquired the airline completely – today Swiss belongs to the Lufthansa Group.

Sabena 2001: the domino effect

The Belgian national airline Sabena was one of the oldest airlines in the world and had flown since 1923 with a hub in Brussels. In 1995, Swissair took a stake of just under half and assumed leadership. That brought capital but also made Sabena dependent. When the SAirGroup itself went under in 2001, its most important financial backer fell away.

At the beginning of November 2001, Sabena went bankrupt, and flight operations ended on November 7, 2001 – one of Belgium’s best-known corporate bankruptcies. From the regional subsidiary Delta Air Transport (DAT), SN Brussels Airlines emerged in February 2002 and continued the old IATA code SN. After the merger with Virgin Express, it became today’s Brussels Airlines in 2007, which in the meantime also belongs to the Lufthansa Group.

Swissair and Sabena show the first typical pattern: one bankruptcy drags the next one down when airlines are financially entangled.

Air Berlin 2017: growth on borrowed money

The story of Air Berlin begins in 1979 with Mallorca flights from Berlin Tegel and ends as Germany’s second-largest airline with oneworld membership and long-haul flights. In between came the IPO, the acquisitions of dba and LTU, the stake in the Austrian Niki and a motley fleet of Airbus, Boeing and Dash 8-400s. You will find the detailed chronicle in the article Air Berlin: rise and fall.

Economically, the numbers didn’t add up. For years the airline posted losses, and from the end of 2011 mainly major shareholder Etihad Airways propped up the company. When Etihad ended its support in 2017, Air Berlin filed for insolvency on August 15, 2017. A state-guaranteed bridge loan initially kept flight operations going so that vacationers could get home and parts could be sold.

The last flight it operated on its own account, AB6210 from Munich, landed on the evening of October 27, 2017, at Berlin Tegel Airport, whose own history is told in the article Berlin Tegel Airport. The Lufthansa Group took over the regional subsidiary LGW and a number of aircraft, and easyJet a part of the Tegel operation. The planned purchase of Niki failed because of concerns from the EU Commission; Niki itself filed for insolvency in December 2017, and parts went to Laudamotion, which today belongs to the Ryanair Group as Lauda Europe.

Germania 2019: the abrupt end

Germania was the “other Berlin airline”: it emerged from SAT, founded in Cologne in 1978, had operated under the name Germania since 1986 and was last a leisure and contract carrier with around 30 jets. A presence at regional airports such as Bremen, Dresden, Erfurt-Weimar, Münster/Osnabrück or Friedrichshafen was typical. Most recently, the Airbus A319 shaped the picture, along with the A321 and a few Boeing 737-700s; 25 A320neos on order never arrived.

On February 4, 2019, Germania filed for insolvency at the Berlin-Charlottenburg district court, and flight operations ended with no transition phase in the night to February 5. Unlike at Air Berlin, there was no bridge loan that kept operations alive for weeks. No buyer for the flight operations was found. Only the Swiss subsidiary Germania Flug survived, got new owners and has flown as Chair Airlines since June 2019.

Germania stands for the second pattern: if no financial backer steps in, operations end overnight. For spotters, that means the last photos are usually taken by chance, not at an announced farewell flight – how to catch planned last flights is shown in the article Spotting farewell and first flights.

Thomas Cook 2019: bankruptcy of a travel group

The Thomas Cook case is different, because here it was not primarily an airline that went bankrupt but an entire travel group. The Thomas Cook Group, whose roots go back to the 19th century, operated several airlines: the British Thomas Cook Airlines with bases in Manchester and London Gatwick, among others, the Scandinavian Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia (now Sunclass Airlines) and Condor in Germany. From 2013, all of them wore the yellow heart logo on the tail.

On September 23, 2019, the group was put into compulsory liquidation, and the British airline stopped flight operations immediately. Because around 150,000 British vacationers were stranded abroad, the British aviation authority CAA launched Operation Matterhorn: with aircraft chartered from other airlines, it brought more than 140,000 people home – the largest peacetime repatriation in British history. Two years earlier, the collapse of Monarch Airlines on October 2, 2017, had triggered a similar operation.

Condor survived. A state bridge loan and a protective shield insolvency procedure kept the airline in the air. The sale to the Polish LOT parent company fell through in 2020 during the COVID crisis; in 2021, the financial investor Attestor took over the majority. When you photograph a Condor aircraft today, you are therefore seeing a direct descendant of the same group.

Alitalia 2021: the long decline

Alitalia flew from 1947, was the first European airline with an all-jet fleet in 1969 and for decades was instantly recognizable by the green-and-red “A” on the tail. Economically, though, it had been under almost permanent pressure since the 2000s. The milestones:

The new ITA Airways took over part of the fleet and the IATA code AZ and bought the Alitalia brand rights, but legally it is a company of its own. Since January 2025, Lufthansa has held a 41 percent stake, and since April 2026, ITA has belonged to Star Alliance. At Rome Fiumicino Airport, you now see the deep blue of the ITA Airbus aircraft instead of the white Alitalia fuselages.

What the cases have in common

Despite all the differences, certain patterns repeat:

• Debt plus a trigger: The situation had usually been tense for a long time. The actual collapse then came through a specific event – 9/11 at Swissair, Etihad’s exit at Air Berlin, the loss of its partner at Sabena.
• Expansion through acquisitions: Swissair with the Hunter strategy and Air Berlin with dba and LTU grew through takeovers faster than they could integrate the structures.
• Dependence on one financial backer: Sabena depended on Swissair, Air Berlin on Etihad, Alitalia for years on the state. When this backing fell away, the end came quickly.
• Liquidity decides: In the end, it is often about very practical things. Anyone who can no longer pay for fuel, airport fees or lease payments ends up on the ground.
• Successors from the remains: New airlines often emerge from subsidiaries or parts of the old ones – Swiss from Crossair, SN Brussels from DAT, ITA from the Alitalia fleet.

Where the aircraft go

Most airlines don’t own their fleets but lease them. In a bankruptcy, the lessors take the aircraft back and rent them out again – often within a few weeks. That explains why former Air Berlin Airbus aircraft kept flying at Eurowings, easyJet and other airlines. The basics are provided by the article Aircraft leasing explained, and why many of these jets are then registered in Ireland, Malta or Bermuda is explained in Offshore registrations in leasing.

In the transition phase, you often see hybrid liveries: new titles on the old design, white patches over the old logos or a new registration on the old fuselage. How to place such mixed forms cleanly is covered in the article Recognizing hybrid liveries.

More cases you should know

Besides the six big names, there are smaller bankruptcies that have left traces for spotters just the same:

• Monarch Airlines – the British leisure airline from Luton ceased operations on October 2, 2017, after almost 50 years.
• Niki – Niki Lauda’s Vienna airline fell together with Air Berlin in December 2017.
• Flybe – once Europe’s largest regional airline, it went insolvent in March 2020; a restart ended in January 2023.
• Level Europe – the Vienna-based IAG subsidiary filed for insolvency in June 2020 after the COVID shutdown.

What to watch for with archive photos

• Note the date of the photo. A Swissair jet after April 1, 2002, or a Sabena aircraft after November 7, 2001, no longer flew for the old airline.
• Check the registration. It often stays the same when liveries change – and vice versa. Through the registration, you can trace an aircraft’s path from operator to operator.
• Don’t assign codes blindly. SN has belonged to Brussels Airlines since 2002, AZ to ITA Airways since 2021. An old flight number can therefore belong to two different airlines.
• Tell group sisters apart. The Thomas Cook heart was worn by British (G-), German (D-) and Scandinavian jets – the country prefix decides.
• Consider wet leases. In the last months, aircraft often flew for other airlines. The livery shows the owner, not necessarily the operator of the flight.

If you are interested in the liveries of this era, it is worth a look at legendary airline liveries. And how alliances such as oneworld or SkyTeam shaped the Air Berlin and Alitalia cases is put into context by the article Star Alliance, oneworld and SkyTeam.

Conclusion

The big European airline bankruptcies follow a surprisingly similar script: long losses, expensive expansion or a dominant financial backer, then a trigger that eats up the last of the liquidity. Swissair and Sabena fell as a pair in 2001, Air Berlin in 2017 after Etihad’s withdrawal, Germania and Thomas Cook overnight in 2019, Alitalia in 2021 after more than a decade of permanent crisis. For spotters, what remain are codes at successors, aircraft at new operators and photos whose value rises with every year – provided date and registration are cleanly documented.