The Danish-Latvian low-cost carrier (LCC) Primera Air Scandinavia, flying as Primera Air (Primera) and its subsidiary Primera Air Nordic, has ceased all operations with immediate effect, as of midnight October 1 leaving up to 5,000 passengers stranded at various destinations in Europe and North America. The reasons given in a statement issued were “several unforeseen misfortunate events severely affecting the financial standing of Primera Air.”
It had been known over the last few days that the carrier had been looking for financial support after excessive spending on wet leases which were entered into as a result of continued delays with the delivery of Airbus A321s, both the A321LR and A321neo, with Primera the intended launch customer of the A321LR. As a result of these delays, the carrier had to invest an unexpected €20 million (US$23 million) on wet leases, and a further €10 million (US$11.5 million) on refurbishment of an existing jet.
In recent years, Primera had commenced an aggressive expansion program, opening a new base in Latvia along with the associated creation of Primera Air Nordic in 2014. In 2017 the carrier tackled competition head-on with the growing presence of other LCCs including WOW and Norwegian by opening of three new European bases at London-Stansted and Birmingham in the U.K. and Paris-Charles de Gaulle in France. From there Primera flew to Boston and Newark in the U.S. Shortly afterwards routes were added from London and Birmingham to New York, Washington DC and Boston in the U.S., and Toronto in Canada. To meet with this expansion, 20 Boeing 737 MAX9s and three A321s were ordered, with the first being delivered in April 2018 on a lease agreement with GECAS.
It was in May this year that major cracks began to appear in Primera’s operations after it was forced to cancel all flights to Toronto, followed in June by the cancelation of all planned summer transatlantic flights from Birmingham to New York as a result of, according to Primera, delays in the delivery of brand-new A321s from Airbus.
In August the carrier announced that: “Primera Air is ceasing operations from Birmingham Airport to Alicante, Tenerife, Las Palma, Reykjavik, and Malaga due to capacity reduction.”