Didn't seem to stop his partner in cri.... I mean his mate. :E

No news? LOL

airliner world article
 

big 3 page spread on the Halstead and his profile in airliner world magazine.

couldnt cancel it before print run i guess.

makes for some very interesting reading

In fairness to Airliner World, the story would have 'broke' long after the magazine had gone to the printers and then into the shops.

However, Airliner World has not been the champion of critical journalism in the past. Not for the first time they have sung praises for a rather dubious start-up that went belly-up rather quickly - and most often not exactly as a surprise.

I posted something a few pages back about another start-up which airliner world took lots of glory for itself for 'foiling' it. It was the september 09 issue if anyone has it... I was particularly dissapointed by the sensationalist way they went about it too... Surely if they are that good at smelling a rat then they would have seen MH coming a mile off considering his past ventures. The injustice is that the previous characture was supposidly autistic and i didnt like the way they handled the article, particularly as he didnt set out to hurt anyone. Same could not be said for MH though.

I await to see what they write in their next issue about this subject.

@pug

...but only after they ran an article about Channel Connect in the August issue (with quotes from unnamed "senior representatives" of Channel Connect) - which I found particularly irritating as they first fell into the trap and in the very next issue they celebrate themselves as the journal that had unmasked the teenager....

ryanair1

Were there any notable quotes you could post?

:ok:

Does anyone have or have access to the precise amount of forward bookings he claims to of taken ? Did see a figure of 500ish anyone have more accurate info ?

This article in the Oxford Times has MH claiming that 68% of seats had been sold for the first month.
I can't find the start-up timetable but I think it was OXF-EDI in the morning and EDI-OXF in the evening = 2 sectors a day Mon-Fri. Typical month = 22 weekdays. 18 available seats.
22 * 2 * 18 = 792 - 68% = 538 single tickets. That all assumes the accuracy of MH's claims in the first place!
What is worrying is that level of seat sales gives a monthly revenue of £26,389. Can anyone run an airline with that little monthly revenue? LinksAir was allegedly owed £60,000. Recipe for disaster before they even made their first flight. Even with a 100% load factor they couldn't pay LinksAir.

Its my understanding that LinksAir were owed a lot less than the sum quoted and had received some of the money owed to them anyway. The main dispute appeared to be VE management's reluctance to pay anyone anything.

Pilot Positive - Here you go
 

You asked for notable quotes (more like sickening quotes):

''it's time to put 'baby branson' to bed and sing him a lullaby, i want to be the first Martin Halstead from here on in''

well i think we can all agree he has completed that task!

''The fundamental business plan was strong and they had the right approach, but before i agreed to join i made sure that there was adequate money behind the project''

Talking about the ficticious financial backers that had 'approached' him

''I guess i had a point to prove to myself that i could do it''

hmmm. That sum's it all up.

If you want more, you need to read the article for yourself - plenty more where the above came from. He says he is getting married this year, but that poor woman (if it is true) should run a mile while she's got the chance

She seems very loyal from this Facebook post on the 8th:"Sounds like the operating airline tried to take advantage of Varsity. That's a shame. It's such a good route for so many people...I hope Varsity can find another operator that isn't motivated by greed."
Or did she leave her Facebook logged on?

Anyone that trys to use this forum for personal attacks against an individual whether a PPRuNer or a contributor to another site; your posts will be deleted at the discretion of the Site moderators.

Discussing how his girlfriend/fiancee is loyal to him is NOT an attack against an individual. It's just a perceived fact as seen from her quotes.

I don't think Hawk was intimating that post was a "personal attack against an individual whether a PPRuNer or a contributor to another site" but just a warning shot across the bows should anyone put ill-judged comments about her on pprune.

May justice prevail...
 

Not sure how this can be avoided given that most of this thread has been directed towards MH. There are people out there who are owed a lot of money essentially because they have been deliberately miseld and lied to by this person. These guys deserve to know their options and they deserve to know the truth. :ok:

Hawk are you suggessting to delete the whole of this thread....? That appeared to be what was happening in the early days of VE and the result was that pilots who were relying on this forum to give them some kind of indication of VE's cerdibilty were denied. :=

Of course, any irrelevant personal attacks targetted towards people who fall outside scope of the topic should be deleted. :D

Any pilot who depends on an anonymous internet forum to make a risky decision to commit time, money and reputation to an obviously questionable operation needs a serious reality check.

The site may have decided not to participate in the promotion of a narcissistic, egomaniacal con-artist. And/or they may have decided a blackout was the best means of sending a message to their readers without providing grist for the libel/slander lawsuit mill.

In either case, lack of comment from the forum fairly shouts that the topic is one that the forum deems not worth the risk/bother to publish comments about. That, plus a little research and common sense, should have told pilots everything they needed to know.

So please, enough whining about the poor pilots being let down PPRuNe. They let themselves down.

StbD,

Whilst I agree with your comment that depending on an anonymous forum to make a decision is risky, it still remains an additional source of information that combined with other research and judgement would have helped build a picture of MH. Yes, if you're going to invest £15k you better ask some pretty searching questions.

I would venture that PPrune neither lets down or supports anyone and as long as threads remain relevant and avoids personal mudslinging the forum moderators should remain impartial in judging information presented within it. Its upto the individual to interpret what he reads and apply that interpretation to his own circumstances.

The opportunity, as contributors, is to supply and share experiences, information, opinions and advice about our industry as and when the need arises. In this case, a new start up was launched with what appears to be the goal of acquiring money by deception from young, perhaps green, pilots. For people who might have had an inkling that this could be the case they have had the opportunity to share their views and perhaps provide some warning to others using the PPrune forum. However, the 6 or 7 VE/MH threads attempting to do so were, at the critical moment, kaboshed.

I am not defending Halstead in the slightest, a despicable individual. However I raised my eyebrows when I saw this claim for £60k. I cannot see how he arrived at this figure.