Hasherucf

Hi

Just wondering if anyone knows what happened to Destination Air and their aircraft in Phuket?. Was at the airport today and the office still has signs out the front. Everything in the office seems active with desks and book work intact.

No sign of the aircraft and the website is still up with no hint of what happened.

Was looking forward to a seaplane flight :-(

Deegan

The Owner went bankrupt.

He had two planes. Both were brand new.
To me, it seems that thy put faar to much money in that project and where not tu busy. Then, the Hotels in Patong ( thats the most busy Customer departure Point ) where complaining and Destination Air had some troubles to pick up people from the Main Crowded Location.

Now, the Plane is for sale

twotters

Guess they are gone now.

siamtexan

Destination Air seaplane service is once again up and running from Phuket thailand. this time owners have changed business model from scheduled shuttle service to pure on call charter...

Cloudrunner71

Destination Air has had several interesting milestones in the last year or so eh Pat?

1. Had your Operating Certificate suspended by the DCA for what you, yourself said were "maintenance issues"

2. Had 90% of your staff take you to Thailand labour court to sue you just to get the wages that they worked for.

3. Have had the last remaining employees walk off the job last weekend (Sept 4th or so)

4. You still owe me 325,000 Thai Baht (about $10,000 USD) for the contract that I signed with you in July 2007 as your chief pilot. You have made "offers" to settle with me and then rescinded. Not sure how you can still manage to be in business with so much outstanding debt.

5. Gary Murray and Jake Vigoda who own Destination Properties and Destiantion Air now refuse to communicate with anyone who they owe money to.

How is it that you can come on here to PPRuNe, a well respected website and suggest that all is well with DA and that you have just "changed the model"?

What needs to be changed is more than the model. What needs to change is your way of treating employees, for example, you need to PAY THEM FOR WORKING FOR YOU.

Destination Air went through 17 western, ex-pat professional Engineers and Pilots in the first 18 months of business. Not one of those former employees has one single good word to say about your operation as a good portion of them were either ripped off for money in one way or another.

For those who want to see what Destination Air in Phuket Thailand is really about, you can try:

Gary Murray and Jake Vigoda Ripped Me Off for $10,000 USD - The History Behind This Webpage - this is my own creation where I am endeavouring to shame the owners, Gary Murray and Jake Vigoda into paying me what they owe me.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Destin...t/133168580341 - this is the site where a lot of the former staff of estination Air have signed up and are being encouraged to tell their stories of being ripped off by this company.

we have a couple of TW*ITTER accounts set up:

http://search.tw*itter.com/search?q=gary+murray

http://search.tw*itter.com/search?q=jake+vigoda

Feel free to refute anything I have written Pat. You are the king of propaganda. Lets hear your side of the story.

Personally, I plan to continue to tell the entire world that I have been ripped off by Destination Air right up until the minute when my $10,000 USD arrives in my bank account. You have my details.

Sincerely,

Scott Macdonald
scottmacdonald.org@gmail DOT com

CareerFloatPilot

Surprising indeed.

powerstall

Website's still up and running.

ozthai

Cloudrunner, if you feel you have a case, why don't you take them to the Thai labour court ?

Cloudrunner71

I do not live in Thailand anymore. I moved away to take another job after giving 6 months notice of my departure, hiring my replacement and giving the company a break of 185,000 baht for a timely payment without any hassles.

I have approached a Thai lawyer who wanted 100,000 up front with no guarantees of a settlement.

Quite honestly, I am trying to shame these guys into paying me what they owe me by plastering their names all over the internet. I constantly send emails asking for my payment and copy the links of how I am telling the world that they are ripping me off.

kwaiyai

Unfortunatly this type of Character wont understand that Cloudrunner they will just keep Smiling cos thats all there brain can do.
Hopefully they will end up in a Concrete piling somewhere in BKK.

airjunk

Hello

I've been silent for far to long regarding Destination Air. Mostly, I've waited to see what happened to them watching from the wings hoping despite all their problems they would succeed but knowing unltimately the company was destined to fail. The deck was stacked against them a long time ago when the owners decided to become a scheduled seaplane airline in a region that could not support one.

So who am I? I am the one who started it all. Back in 2004 we were close to starting a seaplane operation in Malaysia but the whole thing fell apart when I had a car accident and ended up medivacted back the U.S. A year later I looked at buying Bluewater Air as a launch vehicle for regional seaplane services but in the end decided the company had far to many ghosts in the closet to deal with. So, my team and I decided to go it alone but we needed investment. This is where Destination Properties (Jake and Gary) come in. We negotiated a deal with DP whereas my project would be funded and launched and we would retain minor equity stake and profit sharing. Little did I know where this would lead.

So, we embarked on starting what would become Destination Air in Phuket. My team wrote the business plan, did all the government paperwork involved, set in motion the marketing plan, organized for aircraft, defined the operating area, and basically everything else to get the operation started. Then we were shut out.

In 2006 DP refused to honor my original contract and insisted on renegotiating. This took nearly 3 months. Once we had a contract in place and signed, DP tried to change the terms. This is when I basically told them off and walked. Shortly after the GM I brought in quit as well, and sued. Only one member of our team stayed on but that was only because if he did not the company would have been shut down immediately due to conditions set in the license award from the Thai DCA. He is still there, but hasn't worked for the company in over a year due to non-payment of salary.

To replace us they brought in Pat James. This was the first step to Destination Air's failure. Pat was originally hired for marketing but was promoted to MD/GM after we left. He was successful in finally getting the licenses and started operations, but it was a full year later than planned. I won't go into the reasons here but just understand DA has always had a rather tenous relation with the Thai DCA.

Since startup it's been pretty much as said before. They threw out our businss plan and went ad-hoc. They tried to be a scheduled carrier by doing an IATA registration, publishing a schedule, and marketing as as scheduled seaplane operation. This was ILLEGAL. They did not have a scheduled AOC and could not publish or fly a regular scheduled. In fact, they could not even sell by the seat. They had to sell the whole aircraft. And they got caught.

DA completely failed in marketing. Seaplane services are weather permitting, always. Apparantly their sales staff didn't understand this and clarify with customers. There were many incidents of flight cancelations at the last moment (less than 1 hour before flight) which left VVIP guests stranded and cause missed flight connections. As such, most of the Krabi based resorts stopped using them.

In addition, the management, mainly Pat, succeeded in allianating all the foriegn staff (pilots and engineering) resulting in all but one pilot resigning at the beginning of the 2007/2008 peak season. Their cheif engineer resigned in mid-2007 and they haven't had a viable maintenance department since then.

As you may know, seaplane operations live and die on the success of their maintenance programs, particularly salt-water operations. Preventive maintenance is VERY important. DA did none. They were operating on a fix or replace model which lead to major maintenance issues on both aircraft in mid-2008. This resulted in a review of their maintenance procedures and ultimately resulted in the revocation of the operations AOC.

Since then the company has been for sale. But who would buy a shutdown airline with a shit reputation and grounded aircraft. No one. So, they have been trying to get everything back in order and very nearly have succeeded. They now have a minimal maintenance program. They have fixed the aircraft (to a point). And they have rebranded as a charter operation. They are doing the right things but with the management still in charge, there is no hope they will be successful. I doubt they will ever fly a paid flight again.

So where does that leave things? There is a definitive market for seaplane services in Phuket. Bluewater air was almost successful. Destination Air had the wrong model but could have been successful as well. Both died because they had the wrong people, the wrong plan, and wrong attitude. It's really that simple.

I wish DA had been successful. I put 3 years of my life into creating it so I guess I have a bit of a vested interest in seeing the dream succeed. With the right team, the right plan, the right aircraft and the right attitude, it can succeed. Anyone want to partner with us to make it happen the right way, finally....