An AOC and an Operating Licence will be issued by the CAA together - you can't have an AOC without funding and insurance (which are the key criteria of the Operating Licence), and you can't have an Operating Licence without an AOC. You also have to have an aircraft to have an AOC, and generally can't get an aircraft without some funding!
If this lot have so many people on payroll, they must be getting to a similar place as Flybe 2 where the pre-start period saw them eat through £500k a month. That is a huge amount of cash to be burning through, even at seed capital level. None of that counts towards your eventual financial fitness assessment – if the CAA decide your business plan needs £20m in funding, you need £20m at licence issue. The fact you might have spent £3-4m to get to that point doesn’t help you to clear that final hurdle.
I’m told that they have still been hunting around the market for funds and for people to help with fund raising, to no avail on either front.
There is still no sign of an Operating Licence application either – the CAA Official Record Series 2 is published every week and an application would be a matter of public record.
It’s a very strange way to set about starting an airline.