Integrity takes a step forward...lets continue it.
 

Its heart warming to see that the Moderators of PPRuNe have had the integrity to re-instate this thread...if it had continued to be banned (along with the 3 other VE threads) then they could well of been accussed of supporting what now appears to be a pathetic crook. := Well done mods for application of common sense and some sorely sought after integrity: you shall rule :ok:

The lesson from VE is that the market has now got to the stage where it is absolutley accepted that guys who spend £80+ for basic training are now expected to pay for their career without the guarantee of any return - even to the point where a jumped up con artist living in a fantasy world can easily exploit these guys without an afterthought.

And yes I heard all the stories about the interviews before this story broke and my advice was to steer very well clear of these guys as they were neither very good or even serious. Add MH's track record into the mix and you have a very obvious sting which when you are blinded by desparation for a pilot job after spending £80k is not actually that easy to see. Both MH and David Lawrence were almost laughing at the poor interviewees for their naivity - they couldn't believe their luck, like candy off a 5 year old. Scum.

C'mon guys what happened? At this moment in time our industry is severly lacking integrity. The market for taking money off wannabees for type ratings and a few hundred hours is so rife that even the training schools now make it a mainstream offer for their student pilots....and VE is a resultant of that culture. And whilst it would be naive of me to say that such a lucrative revenue stream should be ignored by these operators/schools someone along the line has to make a stand. ;)

I hope that the VE experience will reverberate around the chat forums, training schools, airports, newspapers and courtrooms so violently that students/low hour guys stop to question some of the less genuine offers and actually slow the momentum of this route further developing as the industry norm forever more.

Highly unlikely that is, but if that is the long term result then MH may have just done the industry a favour....possibly the last chance he's ever going to get to bring anything positibe to our industry, albeit unintentionally.

If you are one of those guys who were unfortunate enough to buy into what appeared to be, on the surface, a credible operator and want some advice or pointers/contacts then PM me and I will do what I can (possibly not very much but if I can help I will :)). To the others who were touched by the dark side - may the force be with you young Jedis. :ok:


PP

It shows you that some times (not always) that the things you read on here can be true. If this thread was never deleted in the first place maybe it would have made some of the pilots that paid 15k directly into his own account would have thought twice. I got shafted when I went to Unique Air and maybe if that thread wasnt deleted I would have wasted my time and money to be shafted as well. NOT HAPPY.

newcomer - I'm not familiar with what happened with you and Unique Air - what I write should not be construed as having any bearing on your situation. However, there are things like libel laws and associated intimidating lawyers (my girlfriend terrifies me when she's in 'work' mode !) When something is no more than conjecture or rumour with perhaps nothing more than an anonymous email account as backing, it's a brave site admin who doesn't pull the occasional post.

Like 850CIT, I also attended an interview with Halstead and Lawrence in the rented meeting room in the Gherkin. I had actually applied for the cabin crew role, since they were not advertising for FOs, and the first question that Halstead asked me was why I didn't apply to be a pilot. He told me that they were recruiting for FOs and asked if I was interested.

When he told me the deal - 24k salary, 15k TR and 2 year bond, I decided there and then that it was too risky to spend 15k on a J31 TR for an unproven company especially with Halstead's history. When I asked why the TR was so expensive, the answer given was that the extra cost was to cover SEP training! How much money can you spend teaching someone how to get out of an aircraft? Interestingly the cabin crew were not to get any SEP training since the role was to be purely service, with no safety responsibility.

Anyway, I said that I would prefer to continue the interview for cabin crew, but I would like to consider taking on a flight deck role at a later date. I was in the room with them for about an hour, but I did most of the questioning. I asked Halstead some fairly probing questions about his 'Baby Branson' years and what he has been doing since. At the time, I felt that he was being quite open, but I would now certainly question how honest he actually was. It now seems that Halstead is a professional liar and his acting skills are very convincing.

Lawrence was very obviously being more guarded throughout the interview and got very uneasy when I quizzed him about the investors. He revealed very little and seemed to have trouble making eye contact with me. Halstead interrupted and said something along the lines of "the investors want to remain anonymous, but if we told you who they were, you would have heard of them." Lawrence then gave Halstead a look which was quite clearly a shut your face look and that marked the end of our discussions about the investors.

I had heard from a good source that Newcastle was likely to be their next route after a second Edinburgh flight was started, so I decided to ask about Newcastle to test their reaction. They both were very good at not revealing any surprise that I knew this, but they would not confirm or deny that my research was correct.

During the interview I also admitted that I had started and had made further contributions to the PPRuNe thread on Varsity Express. Though I didn't say this to them at the time, I was quite proud of the fact that I believe I was the first to publicly reveal that Halstead was behind VE. He seemed to appreciate my honesty and was impressed by my research, but Lawrence looked highly irritated. Maybe that was just Halstead's good acting again. I promised that I would not be posting anything further on PPRuNe, but in light of recent revelations, I have decided to break my silence.

Anyway, a couple of weeks later I got an email from 'Gilligan' (I now understand why I had so much trouble finding out his history!). It said that though they felt I interviewed "exceptionally well" for the cabin crew role, they felt that I would be better suited to a flight deck role. He wanted me to keep in touch and consider returning to interview for a flight deck position in the "near future". He was obviously desperate to get my money into his personal bank account!

Needless to say, I wasn't rushing to get back for that interview, though I was in Oxford from last weekend and I nearly booked a flight with Varsity Express on Monday morning. I'm glad I didn't because a few hours later they went bust and the following day I got a job offer from a reputable and well established operator.

I have the following from the public database at Companies House, which shows what he was up to since the Alpha One venture (address redacted for obvious reasons. Clearly he took the Baby Branson to heart and started up a music shop, which also went nowhere. How sad.

Law on obtaining financial advantage by deception:
Deception offences - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Name: MR MARTIN RICHARD ALEXANDER HALSTEAD
Nationality: BRITISH
Date of Birth: 18/05/1986
Address:xxxx

Current Appointments
07114817 VARSITY AIR SERVICES LTD Director 02/01/2010

Registered Office: OXFORD AIRPORT LANGFORD LANE, OXFORD, OXFORDSHIRE OX5 1RA

Appointments at time of Dissolution
05399837 ALPHA1 AIR SERVICES LIMITED Director 20/03/2005 05/12/2006
05798059 DELICIOUS MUSIC REPUBLIC LIMITED Director 27/04/2006 11/08/2009

He may also have had some involvement in a Scottish Internet Television venture.

The purpose of boards like this appears to be to rehash what's already printed in the media - inside information? I think not. Especially with threads getting deleted. It's only thanks to the Sunday Times that we're having this Monday-morning quarterback discussion. :rolleyes:

A quick check shows that every thread started by GobonaStick does indeed begin that way. Perhaps you're right! :rolleyes:

The way it is
 

In line with a few other posters, the fact that some individuals were duped into paying 'up-front' fees for TR, is unfortunately down to them. Others smelt it for what it was - a hair brained fantasy, and walked away. Well done to them. This whole arena in aviation is, like our great banking institutions, a disaster waiting to happen. Passengers rushing like lemmings to pay fares 6 months up front, fares that barely cover op costs, to on line credit card companies, who profit, propping up severly flawed and financially damaged airline companies. Poor sods, who 'only want to fly' paying their companies for the privelege to work for them. The 'authorities':\ sitting back, washing their hands of any responsibilty, and picking up what pieces (sometimes), are left, once the s*** has hit the fan. All through the threads in these forums are the concerns - safety, SOPS, bust outfits, crews left without jobs, passengers left in hell holes with kids etc etc. I do not agree with the BA strike situation, but maybe, just maybe, they are the last stand:eek::eek:

Just discovered that Mr Halstead had a county court judgement against him from 2006 (for £1,513) which was cleared on 4 February 2010 - now, I wonder where he might have got the money to do that?

Oh boy.

Wonder what MH's next venture will be - I'm sure quite a few of us older and wiser heads who posted on this thread would like "I Told You So" t-shirts!! :ugh:

I'm at a bit of a loss to understand the CAA position in all of this. He clearly, under his plans, didn't need an AOC (he wasn't intending to fly anything) but as a ticketing agent, where was his ATOL? My experience of the CAA has been nothing but positive in regards to their commercial regulatory role, and I am trying to work out how he thought he could get away with this - or how he actually could get away with it?

That Times article is pretty damning. Of perhaps more concern to us as an industry, is the effect this whole shambles may have on other, more sensible, start-ups. The industry NEEDS start-ups - and if MH has made it harder for anyone more sensible to start, then shame on him.

TA

Thanks Pprune Pop :D

I'm sure it will come as no surprise to anyone that the two companies mentioned in post 105 never filed any accounts at all with Companies House.

Don't say you weren't warned
 

Quote:

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Oxford Airport denies any recent contact with the owner of Alpha1 Airways, Martin Halstead, and said not to trust the teenage entrepreneur.

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Quote:

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Last week Malcolm Gault agreed that the scheme was a “brilliant idea”, but criticised the airline’s chief, calling him ‘Walter Mitty mark II’.

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That was from the Cambridge student newspaper Varsity five years ago.

He probably didn't require one.

Apply for an ATOL | ATOL Trade Information | ATOL

If Varsity Airlines issued flight tickets on the scheduled flights operated by Linksair immediately on application (which as the only ticket seller, it would be able to), then it was in effect operating as a direct agent for the airline - and tickets bought from an airline are not required to be covered by an ATOL.

Agreed Checkboard - but then, if this was effectively a charter of a LinksAir aircraft by Varsity - who issued the tickets?

That's what is making me wonder... if LinksAir issued the tickets, great. If not - uh oh.... and since the ticket revenue seemed to be piling up in Varsity's accounts, then no ticket was issued by LinksAir!

TA

TA

There is a standard exemption from the need for an ATOL as follows:

"Section 5 Class Exemptions from the ATOL
Regulations
EXEMPTION 1
1 The Civil Aviation Authority, in exercise of its powers under Regulation 5 of the Civil
Aviation (Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing) Regulations 1995, hereby exempts from the
need to hold an Air Travel Organiser’s Licence (subject to paragraph 3 below) any
person who makes available flight accommodation:
(a)in aircraft with 19 or fewer seats available for occupation by passengers; "

At least there is at the moment - I would imagine that VE will have raised the profile of this at the CAA given that there is a consultation running on updating ATOL regulations.

Ah, thanks kirkbymoorside!

You live and learn. I spend my life worrying about Type A licences....

Definitely a loophole for our friends in Kingsway....

TA

Just found this report from the Oxford Times two days before the Sunday Times published their story. Mr Halstead is either completely delusional or willing to continue to mislead in the hope that something might turn up!

But then, hoping something good might turn up appears to have been the entire business case for the airline. If anybody could ever get hold of any business plan that was written, I would be fascinated to read it...

"Mr Halstead said: “It has been a pretty awful week.
“Varsity Express is now looking to work with other operators, but there is a limit to what I can say for legal reasons.
“There was a breakdown in the relationship (with Links Air) and we have suffered a great loss by the breakdown of that relationship.
“We are offering refunds to passengers as and when requested. I want to try to move onwards and upwards.”

Incredible!!!

I feel very sorry fpr the 4 pilots taken for a ride - especially the one mentioned in the Times article.

While a few airlines are taking good care of their cadets in prep for an upturn in the economy - it must be gut wrenching for these folks!!!

Words fail me:sad::sad: