I think one of the main problems for Maxjet was that they weren't really in the business market. They had old business class seats which were perfectly fine, but they were pricing themselves at the bottom of the biz market and were actually in the Premium Economy market most of the time, which is far more geared towards the leisure market. They seemed to be doing well for leisure passengers on the times I flew with them, but struggling for the business travellers.
My abiding memory of them was earlier this year at a snowy (and closed) Stansted airport waiting in the lounge and wondering whether we would be delayed 24 hours to JFK. After a couple of hours and promises by the Maxjet lounge staff that we would be going today, the airport managed to open up and down came the Maxjet plane that had been circling for 3 hours. It wasn't quite a rescue from a desert island, but it felt a little like it at the time.
