Is Malev Saved?
It would be so nice being able to report here that the Hungarian government has finally found the magic bullet and their buying back of Malev Hungarian Airlines was the first step in making the ailing company healthy again. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. It was politics that has given Malev a new lease on life with no magic bullet in sight. This was painfully evident in the interview with Malev’s CEO Martin Gauss, shown in the morning program of Hungarian television aired on 4 March. The poor guy was trying to explain why he believed they had a good plan and in the process described how Malev will first shrink, then grow, how they will copy the good things from the low-cost airlines and reject the bad ones… Nothing that we have not heard before and nothing that has actually worked for others in a similar predicament. Malev looks back on a proud history that started on 26 November 1950 when the company began independent operations as the successor of MASZOVLET
