Sources from Air Nostrum confirmed to ValenciaPlaza.com that the airline hired advisors – Seabury – who are working on a “capital reorganisation”. According to this information, the most interesting option would be to find an investor to whom they can sell the airline by 100%.
Air Nostrum is currently undergoing a deep restructuring process after several years making loses. The Valencia based airline has significantly reduced activity. In fact they had lost passengers by 17.93% in August this year, nearly 1 million users with regard to the same period of 2012 and grounded a part of their fleet. These measures came with redundancy and salary cuts.
All together would have made the company’s viability is guaranteed despite the difficult scenario and the new policy from IAG impacting Iberia, which is the main business for Air Nostrum. In fact, Seabury said “Air Nostrum is a well positioned airline, reliable and efficient, which is working correctly and thus might be attractive to investors”
In the same line, ValenciaPlaza continued to inform that Etihad Airways, currently undergoing an expansion process, might be interested in Air Nostrum, “especially in their Western Mediterranean position and their slots”.
“Collecting passengers for the long haul flights may be a key for an airline which is interested in the Western Europe market”.
The process to bring Air Nostrum to market already started and, according to Seabury, the main attractiveness is the fact that they have already performed an adjustment process in their fleet. Now, the only thing left would be to reach an agreement with pilots who resist salary cuts by 50%.