Wed "Melbourne Age"
Airline deal goes down to the wire. .Leonie Wood. .February 27 2002
Prospective Ansett owners Solomon Lew and Lindsay Fox were bunkered down for a final decision on whether the beleaguered airline would fly after Friday.
With Ansett's administrators sticking to their deadline of midnight tomorrow, Mr Fox and Mr Lew have until this morning to notify authorities that their $500-million Ansett bid will go ahead.
Qantas yesterday began planning how it might carry Ansett passengers over this extremely busy weekend if the planes are grounded.
While Tesna and administrators Mark Mentha and Mark Korda, of accounting firm Andersen, have blamed airport owners and aircraft lessors for last-minute delays in finalising documentation, sources yesterday said almost everything was ready for Tesna to sign.
Mr Lew and Mr Fox spent much of yesterday making their final assessment of Tesna's financial prospects. The sources said the businessmen were concerned about the nature of the financial risk if some of the agreements with other parties were not resolved before Ansett's relaunch.
If Mr Fox and Mr Lew pull out of the deal - as many financial analysts expect - about 2700 employees hoping for full-time jobs with Ansett will once again be out of work. Jobs in ancillary businesses would also be in jeopardy.
Tesna has already employed several dozen managers, including chief executive James Hogan who quit his senior executive role at the successful British budget carrier bmi Midland.
Earlier yesterday, Tesna sources insisted there was a "high probability" that Tesna would complete the deal.
The Civil Aviation Safety Authority has agreed to approve Tesna's application for the crucial Air Operators Certificate in just 36 hours. CASA is expecting an application by midday today at the latest, accompanied by a request from the administrators to withdraw their certificate.
The certificate validates that the carrier has supplied a detailed list of safety audit standards.
CASA still needs the list of registrations for the planes that Tesna intends to fly. But that cannot be supplied until Tesna has finalised its leasing deals with aircraft financiers.
. .As well, Tesna still has not handed over its final business plan to the Victorian Government, a move considered crucial to securing a package of incentives including a payroll tax waiver for up to five years, marketing assistance and a commitment to direct state government business travel to Ansett.
It also has not finalised lease arrangements with any of the capital city airport owners, including Australia Pacific Airports Corporation, the owner of Melbourne airport.