The official end of the ČSA at the weekend is not a tragic event, and it is certainly not unexpected or sudden. It is more about euthanasia, planned and carried out without extraordinary circumstances. And at the same time, it is true that the patient’s suffering could have ended earlier. The end of the ČSA is a reason to remember, maybe even a little moved, but not to cry or be upset.
I understand that this is an important and personal issue for many people. For my generation, ČSA was often the first company they flew with in their life (my mother and I fled to Bulgaria in 1974, and when we landed in Varna, the pilot told us that one of the four engines of our Ilyushin 18 had stopped working), and we have often heard that ČSA is our “family money”, just like Škoda or the word robot.
When the former Czechoslovakia was “partitioned” in 1991, the division of the ČSA was one of the few potential problem points. Eventually the brand and the building went to the Czech Republic (also because the privatization process had started earlier), and as it is written on Wikipedia, former Prime Minister Jan Stráský wrote in his book that there was no division ČSA completely there. fair to Slovakia.
At the same time, we in the Czech Republic were happy that it turned out that way. The airlines were “ours”, and it confirmed us in the (undoubtedly false) belief that the Czech Republic was some sort of “major” successor to Czechoslovakia. After all, the official end of the ČSA fell almost exactly on the date when we celebrate the creation of a state that, in fact, has long ceased to exist.
In short, the ČSA is part of our national identity for people over forty. That was the so-called “national carrier“, which in the last century was a term for airlines partially or fully owned by the state. Today it is a simpler designation, closer to the English word “flag carrier”. The state is not a good entrepreneur, as we know, especially in a competitive environment like air travel. However, there are still airlines that work in some way with the flag of the country where they operate in their marketing, and we associate them with this flag.
Which, by the way, is also the case with the Swissair brand, originally the “national carrier” of Switzerland, whose bankruptcy in October 2001 was much more surprising and faster and more unexpected than the long and expected decline of ČSA. Tens of thousands of passengers were left “hanging” in airports around the world, and the company, which had been profitable for the previous 70 years (and nicknamed ” flying bank”), about billions of francs and zero money. .
Today, the Swissair brand still exists, although it is owned by a completely new company SWISS, since 2005 by the German Lufthansa. But the Helvetic cross, ie the Swiss flag, is still part of the “brand identity”, and for many people it is still the “national bearer” of Switzerland.
The reasons for the collapse of Swissair are – logically – similar to the reason for the loss of us in the Czech Republic ČSA. Air transport changed dramatically in the 1970s and 1980s, due to the deregulation of the aviation industry in Europe and America. “National carriers” have turned into international corporations, and these have become part of a normal business environment where money is more important than politics.
And that was the reason for another amazing accident, perhaps the most famous ever in this industry. I mean the end of Pan Am airline in 1991. If airlines like Lufthansa or Air France are symbols of the countries where they were founded, Pan Am is probably the biggest symbol of the aviation industry all of it. It ushered in its most famous era, when flying was synonymous with success and great style. In its time, Pan Am was one of the most important brands in the entire Western world. It was in the league of brands like Coca-Cola, Levis or Ford, which we envied from behind the iron curtains of the West. And that didn’t help her at all and she disappeared, quickly and like a snap of her fingers.
Internet and online ticketing changed the airline industry even more and more precisely. Again, we can be moved by images from the golden age of aviation, when waiters in suits served passengers high-class gastronomy and flight attendants looked like models, but what happened at the turn of the century had a global effect on hundreds of millions of people. It made flying democratic and affordable, and at the same time an extremely safe form of transportation. It changed the world significantly, compared to how it was changed at the same time (and to some extent together) with new technologies, especially communication. The world has certainly gotten smaller.
These are all the real reasons why we “lost” CSA at the weekend. And yes, there are smaller reasons too, like another airline failure. Usually, these are management mistakes, so no one blames Jaroslav Tvrdík for most of his bad decisions, which turned, based on a political decision, from a an average politician becomes a disastrous businessman. But the question is whether someone else would have been able to prevent the collapse of ČSA. We don’t know and we won’t find out.
Today, the end of the ČSA is greatly mourned by those who suffer from nostalgia for the past, and it does not matter whether they miss the former regime, the Common Czechoslovakia, or just the time when they were young and had the world. “authenticity”. We would also hear pearls of logic such as the fact that the national airlines of Hitler, Gottwald and Klaus survived, but only Fiala buried them in the end. One can debate where the current government is historically on the scale of economic potential, and in my opinion very low, but of course it has nothing to do with the collapse of the ČSA. If she tried to stop him, she would do more harm than good.
Of course, the end of ČSA is sad and sad, as it always is when something we considered part of our life goes out of the world. In my opinion, lowering the flag to half-mast, as the head of the Civil Aviation Authority had done, is just the limit of a reasonable and appropriate “touch”. However, let’s not forget that ČSA was a company and a brand and it doesn’t exist. She accompanied Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic through good times and bad, but she did not shape them. It made our world better or worse. Only humans have that power.
Personally, in the end, I feel sorry for the OK brand, which was great. We didn’t get it 100 years ago by accident or out of necessity (because other countries claimed CS), but it was based on the London Convention of 1912, when the republic didn’t even exist yet. The “O” in this brand stands for Östereich, ie Austria. And after the ČSA used the L brand for several years, it was replaced by the OK brand as a result of the decision of the International Civil Aviation Commission from 1929. They all envied her, they say. It cannot be eliminated. There aren’t many things that make us amazing or special from a global perspective. But we’re fine, you might say. And we will be ok even without ok on planes.
2024-10-29 09:30:00
#Comment #moved #ČSA #reason #upset #Seznam #Zprávy
