Another airline is facing bankruptcy after investor pulls out

While the name means that that's miles the u.s.'s flagship airline, Air Belgium was founded in 2016 as a charter and cargo airline linking the Western European u.s. with Hong Kong and mainland Chinese cities equivalent to Beijing, Shanghai and Zhengzhou.

But founding an airline is an expensive and sooner or later very risky undertaking and, by October 2023, Air Belgium had stopped running all of its passenger flights because it sought for an investor to lend a hand pull it out of accumulating debt.

While a financial disaster protection program reachable to Belgian businesses has allowed the airline to are trying this for nearly a year, a lack of investors who stepped up means that that's miles ready to soon pack up shop for good — on Sept. Three, a Belgian business court granted airline representatives two more weeks to find a solution.

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Local news outlet L'Echo reported that Air Belgium saw its revenue drop by more than forty% since it stopped passenger flights in 2023 and took an annual lack of €22 million (roughly $24 million USD).

Court grants Air Belgium extension but financial disaster still looms

To produce the choice to avoid being handed over to creditors, Air Belgium have to to locate now not lower than €18 million (roughly $20 million USD) in funding. The news outlet reported further that Chengdu-based carrier Sichuan Airlines was in the starting place in talks of stepping in as an investor but ended up pulling out.

Both-week extension was granted because there may perhaps be reportedly yet another interested investor come together with the federal government of Wallonia — a French-speaking region of Belgium containing Brussels and Flanders — to save a lot of the airline.

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While Air Belgium founder Niki Terzakis told the court of "a few potential investors" and "significant progress" to to locate them, the auditor working with Air Belgium had previously written that "the entry of a fresh investor — and therefore [the airline's] continuity — is uncertain."

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Growing debt and losses: Here is why Air Belgium is struggling now

The airline was in the starting place founded with the goal of honing in on what was then rising numbers of travelers between Europe and China but when the u.s. closed its borders amid the pandemic outbreak in 2020, it needed to quickly work out a method to bring in customers.

In 2022, it invested in different new Airbus A330-900 (EADSF) planes to start running new flights to South Africa and Mauritius, an island nation that many Europeans come to for wintry weather holidays, as well as French Caribbean territories equivalent to Martinique and Guadeloupe.

But sooner or later, none of those flights brought within the mandatory traffic and Air Belgium started axing routes earlier than sooner or later canceling all passenger flights in September 2023.

It did run some cargo and ACMI leased flights over the last year on the other hand the airline's future sooner or later relies on an investor who believes in its ability to bring in profit with some lend a hand to step in.

L'Echo further reported that the prospective "hail Mary" investor is able to position in €6 million (roughly $6.6 million USD) in exchange for 75% of the corporate's shares, while the federal government of Wallonia would step in with the remainder €12 million.

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