AAP
15:40 AEST Thu 1 Aug 2002
Australiawide buys Kendell and Hazelton
Australiawide will next week christen its new airline created from merged former Ansett subsidiaries, it was announced.
The Australiawide consortium took ownership of former Ansett subsidiaries Kendell and Hazelton Airlines.
The new airline's full flight schedule will begin on September 1 with a total of 29 planes in the air and the airline's new name will be released next Tuesday.
The new player in Australia's domestic aviation industry has overcome a range of hurdles to merge the two carriers and pare staff numbers back from about 1000 to just 600.
The latest hiccup came late last week when Hazelton creditors threatened to cancel the sale, believed to be worth about $40 million.
The new buyer had indicated that it wanted both carriers or nothing.
Australiawide chief executive officer Michael Jones today conceded his consortium of business and aviation experts "had not always seen eye to eye" with administrators.
But now there was no one else to blame for the destiny of the new group.
"Now it's only up to us, we are not relying on third parties ... and thank God for that," Mr Jones told reporters in Sydney.
"We are looking forward to being the ones to blame now."
İAAP 2002
Last edited by Wirraway; 1st Aug 2002 at 06:00.