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Rheintalflug |
Rheintalflug represents the coming of age of the European aviation industry. What started off as a hobby for Rolf Seewald, Rheintalflug very soon emerged on the Austrian aviation scene as a regional airline with plenty of scope to grow. Rheintalflug started as an air taxi service way back in 1970 with a single Cessna 172. A few years later, Rheintalflug came to be known as a small but important airliner within Austria. The Bregenz based Rheintalflug gradually expanded into an 8 airplane owned company and a few important destinations within Europe were part of its itinerary.
Rheintalflug started off with great hopes. However, a few years in the operation, it had to face a turbulent phase on account of revenues and competition. With limited number of airplanes and destinations to boast of while most of the major destinations being garnered by the popular and big airline companies, Rheintalflug very soon came across a fair degree of trouble.
| The air crash of AC 90 airplane over Lake Constance on 23rd February, 1989 compounded matters further for the company. While Rheintalflug started flying off to limited parts of Europe on behalf of Lufthansa, revenues wise the situation did not change much. Unable to compete against the bigger players in the aviation sector in Europe and beyond, Rheintalflug was initially sold off to Austrian and subsequently merged with Tyrolean Airways.
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The emergence and later on the merger of Rheintalflug as a fringe aviation player in Europe provided with a number of interesting insights. To begin with, it showed that innovative and enterprising entrepreneurial skills can lead to the coming up of potentially big companies. Also, it proved that there is a space even for small airline companies to compete in the eventful and competitive civil aviation segment of Europe. Moreover, the involvement of Lufthansa in the functioning of Rheintalflug, albeit for a limited time, also highlighted the cooperative aspect of relationship among the major and small airline players in Europe.
Further, the saga of Rheintalflug portrayed the extremely high degree of competitive nature of airline business in Europe. With many of the major players garnering important air routes, the small and fringe players find it very difficult to survive for long. Though air traffic is growing in a big way, so is the number and operation of players. The track record, credibility and operational efficiency leading to revenues and profits all do matter. And the support of big and established aviation majors in the circumstances become critical and imperative, in certain cases.
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