Yes, he did. To quote
Ian Fraser's blog, and give him full credit for everything said in the extract, now in the public domain;
hings took a turn for the worse for Dalrymple in summer 2006, when he unveiled ambitious expansion plans for Flyglobespan, including the launch of new transatlantic routes. The plan involved connecting a host of UK airports, including Gatwick, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh, with North American destinations including Boston, New York, Hamilton (near Toronto), Calgary and Vancouver.
In July 2006, Dalrymple entered an agreement Icelandic flag-carrier Icelandair. This deal would see the Reykavik-based carrier lease him a couple of Boeing 757-200s complete with full flight-crew to serve the new transatlantic routes from May to October this year.
It seemed like a good idea at the time. After all, Icelandair is seen as the “BA of Iceland” and the 757-200 is supposed to be an ideal aircraft to serve long-haul destinations. But no sooner had the arrangement kicked in, than the Boeing 757-200s experienced a bizarre sequence of technical difficulties.
On numerous occasions, hundreds of Flyglobespan passengers were left stranded, sometimes for days at a time, at North American airports. It gave rise some remarkably negative comments on web-based forums for air passengers and planespotters.
I'm sure lessons were learned........maybe. Could PPRuNe be one of the web-based forums?