We almost made it through June without an airline bankruptcy. On Tuesday June 26, Air Finland, an airline and package tour operator filed for bankruptcy, ending all operations. 1,000 customers were stranded. They have been the 16th airline to collapse in 2012 (for list of collapsed carriers see here).

Founded in 2002, Air Finland flew to destinations in Dubai, Greece,  Portugal, Spain, and Turkey. They state that they have flown over 400.000 passengers every year since 2005.  Air Finland fleet had three Boeing 757s with an average age of 18 years. Each seated 219 passengers in a one class configuration.

They were primarily a leisure carrier, carrying passengers on their own packages tours, as well as ones sold by other Finnish tour operators. I am interested they collapsed at the start of the peak summer holiday season. One assumes that they have sold a lot of seats for the next few weeks. A lot of Finns will be inconvenienced. I wonder how much cash the airline was holding from those ticket sales – and had they already spent it all?

Meanwhile over at Finnair, the airline is negotiating the handover of one third of its European operations, its Embraers and 200 associated Pilots and Cabin attendants to FlyBE. FlyBE will operate these flights on behalf of Finnair who are focussing their attention on Asian destinations.