Hi Andrew
Yes this subject has been covered before but your post made me sit back and realise it was six years ago this month.
To this day Excalibur was the best company I have ever worked for. They were a small company that had a wonderful quality - the staff that worked for them. From the pilots to the office staff there was a genuine feeling of teamwork. Unfortunately it was the employees that were to suffer the most with the awful experience of sudden redundancy.
Sadly they became a victim of some very unfortunate circumstances and obviously an element of poor management. The DC10 was late arriving resulting in huge costs of subchartering long haul flights. When the aircraft finally was delivered it was a very unreliable aeroplane. Globespan decided to cut there losses on Excalibur and pulled the plug on this once great airline on 26th June 1996 if i remember right .. the day England lost to Germany in Euro 96 .. what a shocking day, with the staff being made redundant the day before payday. No redundancy and no pay .... I wouldn't wish it on anyone and I feel for my industry colleagues when I hear of another airline failure .. ie Gill,British World. We eventually did get some redundancy through the government but not a lot. It wasn't particularly pleasant working there towards the end as you can see the writing on the wall and it is sad to see your company failing.
We have all moved on and everything teaches you a lesson. The lesson I learnt is that the airline industry is volatile and success can soon turn to failure. However, it is still the best job in the world and I am grateful for the chance to work with such wonderful people.
ES
