Business Mexican airlines A clumsy giant stumbles
商业 墨西哥航空公司 一个拙劣航空巨人的穷途末路
Mexicana's bankruptcy will bring welcome turbulence to Mexican skies
墨西哥航空公司的破产将迎来墨西哥上空的群雄争据时代
AFTER 89 years in the skies, North America's oldest airline seems ready to ditch.
驰骋天空89载，北美最老牌的航空公司看来要退出历史舞台了。
Compania Mexicana de Aviacion filed for bankruptcy protection on August 2nd and has been in a tailspin ever since:
8月2日墨西哥航空公司申请破产保护，从那以后墨西哥航空公司运营一直处于混乱状态。
ticket sales were stopped on August 4th and a third of its routes were suspended a few days later.
8月4日起机票开始停止出售。几天后，三分之一的航线停运。
The airline says it has lost $350m since 2007 and now owes nearly $800m.
航空公司说自2007年以来，他们已亏损3.5亿美元，现在外债接近8亿。
These are difficult times for airlines everywhere.
现在各地的航空公司都处于惨淡经营期。
But despite the entry of several low-cost carriers since 2005, fares in Mexico have remained old-fashionedly high:
但是尽管2005年该公司引进了几架低成本航班，但飞机票价依旧停留在旧时的高位。
an hour's flight from the capital's main airport to Guadalajara, Mexico's second city, cannot be had next month for much less than $175 return.
从首都主要机场飞往瓜达拉哈拉（墨西哥第二大城市）的一小时航班，下个月的返程票价不可能比175美元低很多。
Sao Paulo to Rio, a similar hop, can be done for $100.
而圣保罗到里奥的类似短途客机，票价仅100美元。
Partly because of this, middle-class Brazilians fly three times more often than their Mexican counterparts.
其中部分原因是由于巴西中产人士搭乘飞机的次数是墨西哥中产人士的3倍。
Some of Mexico's costs are imposed by fate.
一些墨西哥航班费用昂贵是因为天公不作美。
The thin air of Mexico City, which lies at 2,250m (7,380 feet), reduces a plane's range and the weight it can carry.
墨西哥城2,250米的高空处(7,380英尺)空气稀薄，这使航班的类型和载客重量都受到了限制。
(Flights to Tokyo, for instance, must refuel in Tijuana.) Its international airport, Latin America's busiest, is in a built-up area with no room for a third runway, though the airport is running at capacity.
(例如，到东京的航班必须在提华纳城加油）做为南拉丁洲美最为繁忙的国际机场，尽管它已经满负荷运转了，但由于机场处于建筑密集区，已没有空间再建第三条跑道了。
Last year was especially cruel: while suffering the deepest recession in the Americas, Mexico was hit by the outbreak of H1N1 swine flu, which emptied the country's popular beach resorts and cut airport traffic by one-sixth.
去年的经营情况尤为严峻: 当墨西哥正遭受最严重的经济危机时，H1N1禽流感又突然爆发，让该国广受欢迎的海滩度假胜地无人光顾，航班业务也减少了六分之一。
However, some of Mexicana's problems are man-made.
然而墨西哥航班出现的问题有些是人为导致的。
The firm blames its bankruptcy on onerous labour contracts, under which it says pilots earn 49% more than their counterparts at big American airlines although America is a rich country and Mexico is not.
公司把它的破产归咎于繁重的薪金用工合同，按合同规定，墨西哥飞行员的薪水要比大美航空的同行高出49%，尽管美国是富有的国家而墨西哥不是。
The Mexican pilots' union says this figure is "inexact" but has not provided one of its own.
墨西哥飞行员工会说这个数字不确切，但又提供不出他们自己的数字。
Working hours are capped so that return flights sometimes require two separate crews,
员工的工作时间也设置了上限，导致有时往返的航班需要两班机组人员。
and in some cases the company must train its own pilots rather than hire cheaper outsiders.
在某些情况下公司宁可培训自己的飞行员也不请便宜的外劳。
These burdens are hangovers from Mexicana's days as a state airline, which ended in 2005 but whose influence has never quite been shaken off.
这些负担早在墨西哥航空公司作为国有航空那天起就一直如影随行，直到2005年才它们被免除，但其影响力却从未因此减弱。
It is a rarity in Latin America, "the one region in the world where state-backed carriers have faded out of existence to be replaced by or reborn as fully private airlines," says Alex Dichter, head of the airline practice of McKinsey, a firm of consultants.
麦肯锡航空业务咨询公司主管Alex Dichter说，在拉丁美洲这个地区，国有航空公司被全私营公司取代或自己改组成私营公司的情况是极其少见的。
The continent claims several success stories, including Panama's Copa Airlines, one of the most profitable carriers in the world.
这片陆地曾造就过几个成功的航空传奇，包括世界上最赚钱的航空公司之一，巴拿马航空公司。
Mexicana's failure may have a silver lining.
墨西哥航空公司的倒闭可能为墨西哥航空业带来一线生机。
For a start, it will give breathing space to low-cost carriers such as Interjet and Volaris,
首先，Interjet和Volaris这样低成本运行的航班将会有喘息的空间。
which have gobbled up 21% of domestic traffic since 2005 but have been kept out of many of the most profitable routes by the older airlines.
从2005年起，他们已接管了21%的国内航班业务，但许多最赚钱的航线就一直由老牌航空公司把持着。
By bilateral agreement, most routes to the United States may only be operated by two airlines from each country, so popular hops such as Mexico City to New York are the exclusive business of Mexicana and its rival Aeroméxico, another pricey, formerly state-run carrier.
根据双边协定，飞往美国的大多数航线只能由双方各两家公司负责营运，因此广受欢迎的墨西哥到纽约短程航班成为墨西哥航空公司和它的竞争对手Aeromxico(墨西哥另一家票价昂贵的前国有航空公司)的专享航线。
These two old fossils also hold most of the take-off and landing slots at Mexico City's main airport, relegating the upstarts to the out-of-town Toluca airport (from which a flight to Guadalajara costs more like $115).
这两个老古董一直把持着墨西哥城主要机场的大部分起飞和降落空位，却把一些航空公司的后起之秀排挤到城外的Toluca机场（从那里飞往瓜达拉哈拉的航班票价是115美元）。
Vultures are already circling over Mexicana's valuable slots.
一些贪婪的野心家早已对墨西哥航空公司赚钱的航线垂涎已久。
But the airline's chances of surviving in some form have been helped by a ruling by America's Federal Aviation Administration on July 30th,
美国联邦航空管理局7月30日做出的裁定帮助这家航空公司以某种形式存留下来的机会增加。
which downgraded Mexico's flight-safety rating a notch, owing to a lack of air-traffic controllers.
由于航空交通管制不足，墨西哥飞行安全评定等级被降低。
One impact of the ruling is that Mexican airlines cannot open new services to the United States, meaning that rivals cannot take over routes that Mexicana has been forced to shut down.
这种裁定产生的一个影响是墨西哥航空公司不能开通飞往美国的新航线，这意味着竞争对手不能接手墨西哥航空公司被迫关闭的航线。
Existing routes, however, are not affected—so any airline that took over Mexicana would inherit the American routes it already flies.
然而现存的航线却不受影响—因此任何航空公司在接管墨西哥航空公司以后，将继续运营它已经开通的美国航线。
"It's a problem for the Mexican airline industry that could hold an answer for Mexicana," says Tomás Lajous, head of Mexico strategy at UBS, an investment bank.
墨西哥瑞士投资银行策略主管Tomás Lajous说，"墨西哥航空产业能否承担起墨西哥航空公司的重担仍是个问题"。
Mexicana may end up attracting more bids than a bankrupt airline might expect.
墨西哥航空公司最后吸引来的投标商数量可能会比这个破产的航空公司所希望的要多。