Travel Service Airlines (Prague Václav Havel) has negotiated with Korean Air (KE, Seoul Incheon) to buy its 44% stake in CSA Czech Airlines (Prague Václav Havel), reports Zdopravy. Travel Service has also nabbed the 19.7% stake held by the Czech state's asset management company, Prisko, bringing its total stake in CSA to almost 98%.
The co-owner of Travel Service, Jiří Šimáně, had previously hinted that his company would be interested in absorbing the state carrier, saying that "our air transport market only has enough room for one Czech company". Travel Service's operations – through its ACMI/charter unit and its seat-only business smartwings – are almost twice the size of CSA's.
ch-aviation has learned that Travel Service intends to phase out its brand name, and will move all operations under the Smartwings (Prague Václav Havel) virtual brand. Travel Service will remain as the holding company. Chinese investment group CEFC controls 49.9% of Travel Service.
According to ch-aviation capacity data, Smart Wings makes up 10.8% of the Czech market in terms of scheduled seat capacity, while CSA makes up 17.4%. Fleet-wise, Travel Service has an all-Boeing fleet of thirty-five aircraft, to which it will now add CSA's nine A319-100s, one A330-300, three ATR42-500s and five ATR72-500s.
