Helios / Alpha Air
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Ajet grounded by Cypriot state treasury?
good morning,
my brother reports from Paphos, that 'ajet's jet was blocked on runway and deferred from taking off by police. apparent reason: high tax liabilities'.
this report lacks vital details but that's all I have.
...and the website is down.
my brother reports from Paphos, that 'ajet's jet was blocked on runway and deferred from taking off by police. apparent reason: high tax liabilities'.
this report lacks vital details but that's all I have.
...and the website is down.
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On arrival at MAN the crew had just been informed that they would not be returning to Cyprus on the aircraft as A-Jet had ceased operations and it was to return to the lessor, they were going to return as pax on a XLA flight. The A-Jet return flight from MAN was cancelled. The aircraft left about an hour after it arrived. It was the latest aircraft the had "Echo Charlie" with wingtips.
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today's cyprus mail
Just been sent this from todays Cyprus Mail.
Airport chaos as government grounds ajet flights
By Elias Hazou
PASSENGERS were yesterday caught in the middle of a game of chicken between ajet and the government, after a plane was grounded at Larnaca airport.
The flight to Gatwick was scheduled for 4pm, but on the orders of the airport chief a maintenance vehicle was deployed on the runway to block the jet.
Some 200 passengers were left waiting on the plane. Once they realised that the flight wasn’t happening, they disembarked and headed for the airport’s departure lounge, frantically searching for airline officials to explain the situation. There were no ajet staff to be seen.
Tempers flared when the frustrated passengers, stranded at the departure lounge for hours without any cash or food, got into a verbal altercation with airport security.
Calm was eventually restored as the travellers were transferred to a Eurocypria flight later in the night.
An earlier flight with ajet had also been cancelled, but due to technical reasons.
Transport Minister Harris Thrassou told CyBC television that he had instructed airport officials to prevent the afternoon plane from taking off.
He said that, earlier in the day, the airline had informed Civil Aviation that it was ceasing its flight operations forthwith.
“As such, we had no other choice but to ground the plane,” Thrasou said.
Earlier in the week, the company announced it was terminating all operations inside the next three months due to accrued financial difficulties in the aftermath of last summer’s crash.
In this light, Thrassou described ajet’s move yesterday as being completely out of the blue.
“We can’t put up with the company’s wavering any longer. They have forced our hand,” he said.
But ajet, which called the blocking of their aircraft a “commando raid”, had a very different take.
Company sources told the Mail yesterday that ajet was in fact ceasing operations, but this was because of a disagreement over taxes owed to the government.
The government demanded that ajet pay all its arrears immediately, something the company turned down.
The same sources said they had reassured the government they would pay up, but needed more time – the three-month deadline mentioned above.
But the government refused, blackmailing the airline that it would stop its planes from flying unless it received the taxes owed, the company sources claimed. In response, ajet said it had no other option but to halt operations.
Some strong language was exchanged over the phones, the Mail has learned.
With neither side willing to back down, the government made good on its threat, blocking the plane on the runway, the sources said.
Bookings with ajet are to be re-directed to charter airlines.
Last month reports surfaced that ajet, formerly known as Helios, was moving its base of operation to Britain.
The airline dropped its Athens route immediately after the crash, and finally handed back its Heathrow slot in the middle of January this year. It had kept its hard-won slot at Luton, but dealt mainly in charter seats and online bookings for the British market.
The crash cost airline owners Libra at least £5 million plus another £18 million the group wrote off in goodwill as a result of the accident, which resulted in group losses up until the end of October last year of £23.69 million compared to a profit of £2.58 million in the same period in 2004.
Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2006
Airport chaos as government grounds ajet flights
By Elias Hazou
PASSENGERS were yesterday caught in the middle of a game of chicken between ajet and the government, after a plane was grounded at Larnaca airport.
The flight to Gatwick was scheduled for 4pm, but on the orders of the airport chief a maintenance vehicle was deployed on the runway to block the jet.
Some 200 passengers were left waiting on the plane. Once they realised that the flight wasn’t happening, they disembarked and headed for the airport’s departure lounge, frantically searching for airline officials to explain the situation. There were no ajet staff to be seen.
Tempers flared when the frustrated passengers, stranded at the departure lounge for hours without any cash or food, got into a verbal altercation with airport security.
Calm was eventually restored as the travellers were transferred to a Eurocypria flight later in the night.
An earlier flight with ajet had also been cancelled, but due to technical reasons.
Transport Minister Harris Thrassou told CyBC television that he had instructed airport officials to prevent the afternoon plane from taking off.
He said that, earlier in the day, the airline had informed Civil Aviation that it was ceasing its flight operations forthwith.
“As such, we had no other choice but to ground the plane,” Thrasou said.
Earlier in the week, the company announced it was terminating all operations inside the next three months due to accrued financial difficulties in the aftermath of last summer’s crash.
In this light, Thrassou described ajet’s move yesterday as being completely out of the blue.
“We can’t put up with the company’s wavering any longer. They have forced our hand,” he said.
But ajet, which called the blocking of their aircraft a “commando raid”, had a very different take.
Company sources told the Mail yesterday that ajet was in fact ceasing operations, but this was because of a disagreement over taxes owed to the government.
The government demanded that ajet pay all its arrears immediately, something the company turned down.
The same sources said they had reassured the government they would pay up, but needed more time – the three-month deadline mentioned above.
But the government refused, blackmailing the airline that it would stop its planes from flying unless it received the taxes owed, the company sources claimed. In response, ajet said it had no other option but to halt operations.
Some strong language was exchanged over the phones, the Mail has learned.
With neither side willing to back down, the government made good on its threat, blocking the plane on the runway, the sources said.
Bookings with ajet are to be re-directed to charter airlines.
Last month reports surfaced that ajet, formerly known as Helios, was moving its base of operation to Britain.
The airline dropped its Athens route immediately after the crash, and finally handed back its Heathrow slot in the middle of January this year. It had kept its hard-won slot at Luton, but dealt mainly in charter seats and online bookings for the British market.
The crash cost airline owners Libra at least £5 million plus another £18 million the group wrote off in goodwill as a result of the accident, which resulted in group losses up until the end of October last year of £23.69 million compared to a profit of £2.58 million in the same period in 2004.
Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2006
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The crash cost airline owners Libra at least £5 million plus another £18 million the group wrote off in goodwill as a result of the accident, which resulted in group losses up until the end of October last year of £23.69 million compared to a profit of £2.58 million in the same period in 2004.
Someone said something about safety being expensive......?
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AJet ceased trading!?!?
Just read in Travel Weekly that Ajet (formerly Helios) have ceased trading. Not managed to find anything on the web about it though. It says that it happened on Wednesday.
Can anyone confirm?
Can anyone confirm?
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A jet, the end.
End of the road for ajet
By Alexia Saoulli
CIVIL aviation authorities yesterday issued an order grounding ajet flights from Cyprus, and secured a court injunction freezing assets of the company worth £3 million.
The injunction is to be reviewed by a court today. Meanwhile, authorities rescinded ajet's flight certificate, Communications Minister Haris Thrassou said yesterday.
"Our legislation gives the government the right to prevent flights until the Republic recoups its debt," he said.
Ajet, the successor company to Helios Airways, had already announced a suspension of operations but the government moved in swiftly to ground its fleet when it emerged on Wednesday that the carrier planned to shut earlier than scheduled.
Attorney-general Petros Klerides announced yesterday morning that a Limassol district court had issued a court order banning the departure of an ajet’s aircraft from Larnaca.
The company’s two other planes are currently abroad.
"A court order has also been issued regarding our request to freeze up to £3 million of ajet’s assets, which is a little less than the amount owed to the state according to the Communication Ministry in airport taxes and other dues," Klerides added.
Ajet owes the state more than £2 million in accrued tax, which the government has demanded that the carrier pay immediately.
Thrassou gave the order to ground an ajet plane bound for Birmingham late on Wednesday. The order came almost immediately after ajet informed aviation authorities it would suspend operations.
Witnesses said a maintenance vehicle blocked the aircraft on the tarmac at Larnaca airport while passengers were on board.
The same plane was stopped from flying to Sofia and Warsaw yesterday, resulting in alternative travel arrangements having to be made for hundreds of passengers, many of whom had to wait at Larnaca airport for hours. The Sofia passengers were eventually transferred to a Eurocypria plane, while those travelling for Warsaw were taken to a hotel for the night.
Ajet lawyer Christos Neocleous said yesterday the airline had had no choice but to suspend operations earlier than scheduled because creditors had suddenly sought immediate payment, and not incrementally as initially agreed.
A statement released to the stock exchange by Libra Holidays Group, the publicly listed parent company of ajet, said the same thing.
Neocleous accused the government of treating the airline unfavourably and blamed the authorities for the chaos with delayed flights, accusing it of using the airline's only aircraft as a pawn.
But Klerides and President Tassos Papadopoulos both defended Thrassou's decision to ground the aircraft and said the minister had had every legal right to do so, particularly based on the huge amount of money owed by the company.
"The government had to find a way to secure the money owed to the state," the president said.
Thrassou said the decision to stop the carrier's flights would not affect the ongoing investigation into the last year's Helios air disaster nor any possible civil suits brought against the airline by the victims' families.
He said the carrier had forced his hand in grounding the plane after its announcement that it was terminating all flight operations, leaving him no choice but to act in the best interest of the state. He said the state would be suing the company to get the money back.
Helios and its successor company ajet, which only changed its name earlier this year, have been hammered by a barrage of bad publicity over its safety record since its Boeing 737-300 rammed into a Greek hillside on August 14, 2005, killing all 121 people on board.
The aircraft flew on autopilot for more than two hours, with most people on board unconscious, before crashing from lack of fuel.
A Greek investigator's report released in early October blamed the crash on deficient technical checks, the pilots' failure to pick up on compression warnings regulating oxygen supplies, and shortcomings in the safety culture at Helios.
The carrier has challenged the report, saying it offered no plausible explanation of how its alleged shortcomings could have been linked to the crash.
Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2006
By Alexia Saoulli
CIVIL aviation authorities yesterday issued an order grounding ajet flights from Cyprus, and secured a court injunction freezing assets of the company worth £3 million.
The injunction is to be reviewed by a court today. Meanwhile, authorities rescinded ajet's flight certificate, Communications Minister Haris Thrassou said yesterday.
"Our legislation gives the government the right to prevent flights until the Republic recoups its debt," he said.
Ajet, the successor company to Helios Airways, had already announced a suspension of operations but the government moved in swiftly to ground its fleet when it emerged on Wednesday that the carrier planned to shut earlier than scheduled.
Attorney-general Petros Klerides announced yesterday morning that a Limassol district court had issued a court order banning the departure of an ajet’s aircraft from Larnaca.
The company’s two other planes are currently abroad.
"A court order has also been issued regarding our request to freeze up to £3 million of ajet’s assets, which is a little less than the amount owed to the state according to the Communication Ministry in airport taxes and other dues," Klerides added.
Ajet owes the state more than £2 million in accrued tax, which the government has demanded that the carrier pay immediately.
Thrassou gave the order to ground an ajet plane bound for Birmingham late on Wednesday. The order came almost immediately after ajet informed aviation authorities it would suspend operations.
Witnesses said a maintenance vehicle blocked the aircraft on the tarmac at Larnaca airport while passengers were on board.
The same plane was stopped from flying to Sofia and Warsaw yesterday, resulting in alternative travel arrangements having to be made for hundreds of passengers, many of whom had to wait at Larnaca airport for hours. The Sofia passengers were eventually transferred to a Eurocypria plane, while those travelling for Warsaw were taken to a hotel for the night.
Ajet lawyer Christos Neocleous said yesterday the airline had had no choice but to suspend operations earlier than scheduled because creditors had suddenly sought immediate payment, and not incrementally as initially agreed.
A statement released to the stock exchange by Libra Holidays Group, the publicly listed parent company of ajet, said the same thing.
Neocleous accused the government of treating the airline unfavourably and blamed the authorities for the chaos with delayed flights, accusing it of using the airline's only aircraft as a pawn.
But Klerides and President Tassos Papadopoulos both defended Thrassou's decision to ground the aircraft and said the minister had had every legal right to do so, particularly based on the huge amount of money owed by the company.
"The government had to find a way to secure the money owed to the state," the president said.
Thrassou said the decision to stop the carrier's flights would not affect the ongoing investigation into the last year's Helios air disaster nor any possible civil suits brought against the airline by the victims' families.
He said the carrier had forced his hand in grounding the plane after its announcement that it was terminating all flight operations, leaving him no choice but to act in the best interest of the state. He said the state would be suing the company to get the money back.
Helios and its successor company ajet, which only changed its name earlier this year, have been hammered by a barrage of bad publicity over its safety record since its Boeing 737-300 rammed into a Greek hillside on August 14, 2005, killing all 121 people on board.
The aircraft flew on autopilot for more than two hours, with most people on board unconscious, before crashing from lack of fuel.
A Greek investigator's report released in early October blamed the crash on deficient technical checks, the pilots' failure to pick up on compression warnings regulating oxygen supplies, and shortcomings in the safety culture at Helios.
The carrier has challenged the report, saying it offered no plausible explanation of how its alleged shortcomings could have been linked to the crash.
Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2006
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According to the Cyprus Mail of 8 November, operations and employees will be taken over by Excel:
Ajet: state stopping us from paying creditors
By Elias Hazou
(archive article - Wednesday, November 8, 2006)
CASH-STRAPPED ajet said yesterday it had been beset upon by ravenous creditors as it struggled to keep afloat and pay off its debts.
This week the airline, which has suffered substantial losses since last summer’s air crash and the ensuing bad publicity, felt the noose tighten as the government and then Hermes, administrators of Larnaca airport, demanded it make good on its arrears.
Hermes wants 625,000 euros from ajet (airport fees for the months of September and October) and another 275,000 euros from Celestia, the owners of the planes.
The Transport Ministry is also asking Celestia for £740,000 in unpaid dues.
On Monday the Attorney-general’s office filed an injunction with a Larnaca court to seize the airline’s remaining plane. The Transport Ministry has meanwhile issued a second interim order grounding the airline’s fleet.
Yesterday the court postponed examining a motion by the government to keep the plane grounded, as well as a petition by Hermes to freeze the assets of Celestia.
Ajet’s assets have already been frozen by a court order.
Until the court reconvenes, the government is within its rights to stop the plane from taking off.
Ajet is said to owe the state more than £2 million in accrued tax, which the government demands the airline pay immediately.
The money rush arose soon after ajet announced it was ceasing operations within the next three months. Some say the government feared the company might default on its debts.
But once the spat with the government broke out, the airline said it was terminating flights immediately and would be transferring bookings to another operator, Excel Airways.
Its some 200 employees would also be relocated to Excel, but it now seems they might be left in the lurch.
The low-cost carrier says its immovable assets amount to just £400,000, and that it is being stripped of the very means by which it could repay their dues.
“If this information is accurate, then it is disastrous for everyone involved,” offered lawyer Pambos Ioannides, of the Tassos Papadopoulos law firm representing Hermes.
“The company’s assets are far less than their outstanding dues. This would have serious repercussions for its creditors. I wonder how they could continue operating in these circumstances,” he added.
According to ajet, they had planned to return the plane to Celestia and thus get a refund on a deposit. Moreover, they claim, they recently concluded an arrangement with Boeing, who agreed to pay up to 30 per cent on damages awarded to the families of the crash victims.
This latter figure amounted to around $9 million, ajet lawyer Christos Neocleous told the Mail yesterday.
“We had a strategy in place to generate revenues so we could pay off what we owe. But they [the government] is making it impossible for us to do that,” he said.
Earlier, Neocleous told state radio that “the government cannot play both sides. They are choking the company, and then pretend to have resurrected the dead.”
And he suggested the Transport Ministry was now going after Celestia to put the squeeze on ajet.
In a further twist, the company is seeking at least £1 million from the government for losses incurred due to delays in approving its name-change (from Helios Airways) and a new Air Operators Certificate (AOC).
Speaking to the Mail, Neocleous denied ajet had ever contemplated declaring bankruptcy, but added:
“By its actions, the government could drive us there.”
Helios Airways dropped the Athens route immediately after the August 14 crash, finally handing back its Heathrow slot in the middle of January this year.
It kept its hard-won slot at Luton but dealt mainly in charter seats and online bookings.
The accident cost mother company Libra £5 million plus another £18 million the group wrote off in goodwill as a result of the accident, which resulted in group losses up until the end of October 2005 of £23.69 million compared to a profit of £2.58 million in the same period in 2004.
In the months following the accident, there was speculation in the media that the airline enjoyed preferential treatment from Civil Aviation, and that the two were covering each other’s back in relation to the air crash. The mood began to shift after the publication of the accident report, which said “operational deficiencies” in ajet were an underlying cause of the crash. Civil Aviation was not held directly responsible.
The Boeing 737-300 jet suffered loss of pressure, knocking the pilots unconscious due to lack of oxygen. The plane flew on autopilot for hours before running out of fuel and slamming into a ravine 50km outside Athens. All 121 people on board were killed.
The fact-finding report attributed the disaster primarily to pilot error. Design omissions by aircraft manufacturers Boeing were also cited as one of the latent causes, despite a recommendation by the US National Transportation Safety Board that this be downgraded to a “contributing factor.”
Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2006
Ajet: state stopping us from paying creditors
By Elias Hazou
(archive article - Wednesday, November 8, 2006)
CASH-STRAPPED ajet said yesterday it had been beset upon by ravenous creditors as it struggled to keep afloat and pay off its debts.
This week the airline, which has suffered substantial losses since last summer’s air crash and the ensuing bad publicity, felt the noose tighten as the government and then Hermes, administrators of Larnaca airport, demanded it make good on its arrears.
Hermes wants 625,000 euros from ajet (airport fees for the months of September and October) and another 275,000 euros from Celestia, the owners of the planes.
The Transport Ministry is also asking Celestia for £740,000 in unpaid dues.
On Monday the Attorney-general’s office filed an injunction with a Larnaca court to seize the airline’s remaining plane. The Transport Ministry has meanwhile issued a second interim order grounding the airline’s fleet.
Yesterday the court postponed examining a motion by the government to keep the plane grounded, as well as a petition by Hermes to freeze the assets of Celestia.
Ajet’s assets have already been frozen by a court order.
Until the court reconvenes, the government is within its rights to stop the plane from taking off.
Ajet is said to owe the state more than £2 million in accrued tax, which the government demands the airline pay immediately.
The money rush arose soon after ajet announced it was ceasing operations within the next three months. Some say the government feared the company might default on its debts.
But once the spat with the government broke out, the airline said it was terminating flights immediately and would be transferring bookings to another operator, Excel Airways.
Its some 200 employees would also be relocated to Excel, but it now seems they might be left in the lurch.
The low-cost carrier says its immovable assets amount to just £400,000, and that it is being stripped of the very means by which it could repay their dues.
“If this information is accurate, then it is disastrous for everyone involved,” offered lawyer Pambos Ioannides, of the Tassos Papadopoulos law firm representing Hermes.
“The company’s assets are far less than their outstanding dues. This would have serious repercussions for its creditors. I wonder how they could continue operating in these circumstances,” he added.
According to ajet, they had planned to return the plane to Celestia and thus get a refund on a deposit. Moreover, they claim, they recently concluded an arrangement with Boeing, who agreed to pay up to 30 per cent on damages awarded to the families of the crash victims.
This latter figure amounted to around $9 million, ajet lawyer Christos Neocleous told the Mail yesterday.
“We had a strategy in place to generate revenues so we could pay off what we owe. But they [the government] is making it impossible for us to do that,” he said.
Earlier, Neocleous told state radio that “the government cannot play both sides. They are choking the company, and then pretend to have resurrected the dead.”
And he suggested the Transport Ministry was now going after Celestia to put the squeeze on ajet.
In a further twist, the company is seeking at least £1 million from the government for losses incurred due to delays in approving its name-change (from Helios Airways) and a new Air Operators Certificate (AOC).
Speaking to the Mail, Neocleous denied ajet had ever contemplated declaring bankruptcy, but added:
“By its actions, the government could drive us there.”
Helios Airways dropped the Athens route immediately after the August 14 crash, finally handing back its Heathrow slot in the middle of January this year.
It kept its hard-won slot at Luton but dealt mainly in charter seats and online bookings.
The accident cost mother company Libra £5 million plus another £18 million the group wrote off in goodwill as a result of the accident, which resulted in group losses up until the end of October 2005 of £23.69 million compared to a profit of £2.58 million in the same period in 2004.
In the months following the accident, there was speculation in the media that the airline enjoyed preferential treatment from Civil Aviation, and that the two were covering each other’s back in relation to the air crash. The mood began to shift after the publication of the accident report, which said “operational deficiencies” in ajet were an underlying cause of the crash. Civil Aviation was not held directly responsible.
The Boeing 737-300 jet suffered loss of pressure, knocking the pilots unconscious due to lack of oxygen. The plane flew on autopilot for hours before running out of fuel and slamming into a ravine 50km outside Athens. All 121 people on board were killed.
The fact-finding report attributed the disaster primarily to pilot error. Design omissions by aircraft manufacturers Boeing were also cited as one of the latent causes, despite a recommendation by the US National Transportation Safety Board that this be downgraded to a “contributing factor.”
Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2006
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Here's a bit of an update about the grounded ajet plane. However, this article says that the employees are out of work, not working for Excel.
Deal allows ajet plane to take off
By Elias Hazou
EMBATTLED ajet and the government have reached a deal allowing the airline’s grounded plane to leave the island.
The development eased a standoff that began two weeks ago, when the Transport Ministry had secured an interim order to keep ajet’s fleet on the ground.
It was intended as a pressure lever on the company, which the government says owes it some £2.1 million in arrears.
According to the airline, the government placed impossible conditions on it, such as demanding the money immediately.
Meanwhile the Attorney-general’s office had filed an injunction with a Larnaca court to seize the airline’s remaining plane, which ajet is leasing from owners Celestial, an Irish concern.
The 737-800 jet was finally cleared for takeoff yesterday morning, heading out for London.
The government had also moved to freeze ajet’s assets.
Complicating matters further, Celestial were being asked for £740,000 in unpaid airport fees.
The low-cost carrier protested that its immovable assets amounted to just £400,000, and that it was being stripped of the very means by which it could repay its dues.
Yesterday the Larnaca court was set to rule on the injunction; but on the eleventh hour the two sides came to an accommodation.
The government has secured a letter of guarantee from Celestial for the £740,000.
But according to ajet lawyer Christos Neocleous, this amount, which is part of the £2.1 million owed in total, will be paid only once ajet’s damages claim against Boeing is settled.
The agreement provides that if ajet win their claim against Boeing, part of the damages will go towards paying off the £2.1 million owed to the government.
If ajet loses, the government gets just the £740,000 from Celestial.
“This is what we proposed in the first place, but the government would hear nothing of it,” said Neocleous.
“Apparently they realised they’d got themselves into a dead end, so they decided to change strategy.”
Neocleous said the Transport Ministry’s hasty actions, which brought about the closure of the airline, had backfired.
“As a result of ajet’s closure, 140 people are out on the streets. Now the government is saddled with their unemployment benefits, which I assure you are no insignificant sum.
“All of this mess might have been avoided had they not shut us down. We had struck a brokerage deal with Excel to hand them our routes. That way, our employees would have kept their jobs.”
Next, Neocleous said, ajet missed out on some £1.8 million from the deposit on the plane, which they were not allowed to return to owners Celestial. Also, they had reached an agreement to sub-lease their planes, which would have generated around £800,000 a year.
“In their haste to shut us down and gratify public sentiment, the government made a hash of things. Now we want compensation for all this income lost. And yes, we plan to sue the government sometime in the coming weeks.”
Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2006
Deal allows ajet plane to take off
By Elias Hazou
EMBATTLED ajet and the government have reached a deal allowing the airline’s grounded plane to leave the island.
The development eased a standoff that began two weeks ago, when the Transport Ministry had secured an interim order to keep ajet’s fleet on the ground.
It was intended as a pressure lever on the company, which the government says owes it some £2.1 million in arrears.
According to the airline, the government placed impossible conditions on it, such as demanding the money immediately.
Meanwhile the Attorney-general’s office had filed an injunction with a Larnaca court to seize the airline’s remaining plane, which ajet is leasing from owners Celestial, an Irish concern.
The 737-800 jet was finally cleared for takeoff yesterday morning, heading out for London.
The government had also moved to freeze ajet’s assets.
Complicating matters further, Celestial were being asked for £740,000 in unpaid airport fees.
The low-cost carrier protested that its immovable assets amounted to just £400,000, and that it was being stripped of the very means by which it could repay its dues.
Yesterday the Larnaca court was set to rule on the injunction; but on the eleventh hour the two sides came to an accommodation.
The government has secured a letter of guarantee from Celestial for the £740,000.
But according to ajet lawyer Christos Neocleous, this amount, which is part of the £2.1 million owed in total, will be paid only once ajet’s damages claim against Boeing is settled.
The agreement provides that if ajet win their claim against Boeing, part of the damages will go towards paying off the £2.1 million owed to the government.
If ajet loses, the government gets just the £740,000 from Celestial.
“This is what we proposed in the first place, but the government would hear nothing of it,” said Neocleous.
“Apparently they realised they’d got themselves into a dead end, so they decided to change strategy.”
Neocleous said the Transport Ministry’s hasty actions, which brought about the closure of the airline, had backfired.
“As a result of ajet’s closure, 140 people are out on the streets. Now the government is saddled with their unemployment benefits, which I assure you are no insignificant sum.
“All of this mess might have been avoided had they not shut us down. We had struck a brokerage deal with Excel to hand them our routes. That way, our employees would have kept their jobs.”
Next, Neocleous said, ajet missed out on some £1.8 million from the deposit on the plane, which they were not allowed to return to owners Celestial. Also, they had reached an agreement to sub-lease their planes, which would have generated around £800,000 a year.
“In their haste to shut us down and gratify public sentiment, the government made a hash of things. Now we want compensation for all this income lost. And yes, we plan to sue the government sometime in the coming weeks.”
Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2006
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i was one of the initial crews sent down to work on the first rescue flight. Have to report the passengers were glad to be flying home and had no problems with them.
Thanks for the further updates, should i find out anything further on this subject i`ll post it back here.
Thanks for the further updates, should i find out anything further on this subject i`ll post it back here.
