There was a 4-part series of Channel 4 documentaries, one included Mr. Halstead, (aired Sept. 2005) called 'Live Now, Pay Later'. Unfortunately I've not been able to find a video of the documentary. From memory, it was certainly very eye-opening as to the then attitude of the individual.

Using the figures and information from the article and presuming he had no other investment what so ever. He took in over £50,000 from those 4 pilots (but at £15,000 per person that makes £60,000, surely?) and £8,200 in ticket receipts, all of which presumably went into his personal bank account as he had “not set up a company bank account”. He paid only £30,000 to LinksAir and the remainder (between £28,200 – £38,200) disappeared in “operating costs”, in one week, or since the debut on 20th January 2010 (47 days). It also seems that Mr. Halstead is trying to apportion the blame with Mr. Lawrence who was on paper only a shareholder and not a director. This is of course if we believe the article to be correct.

Be very interesting to see what the authorities do, but as PM says I wouldn’t be surprised if he escapes scot free.

I had read the flyertalk thread; the article for the Times puts him a wholly different light...

Re Heat, dont know what you have been smoking... If I understand you correctly it is ok in the US to:

-Claim to be a non excistent director
-Lie about money being available (for 2 years operation...)
-Lie to who ever rents you an airplane about payments
-STEAL money from wannabee pilots..

If this is your idea of pulling a country out of recession....:confused:

If you intend to go through life being guided by the collective wisdom of an internet rumour site, you may well need to get more than £15k lined up. Use of the same internet to run a couple of basic searches on this enterprise would have indicated its precarious nature. Too good to be true is often just that.

I'm just off to Jetblast to see if I should invest my life savings in Icelandic Banks...

Quite often on this site we see criticism of journalists (often totally justified, I must admit!) but on this occasion surely we should say well done to the Sunday Times whose journalist has managed to prise the facts out of Mr Halstead, confirming the suspicions many of us had.

It's a fair question too, as to why so many previous thread were pulled (although I do recall seeing some comments which were potentially actionable as they could not be substantiated).

This quote (from another site) should have been enough to give anybody pause :

"What were the circumstances which lead to the creation of Varsity Express?

I had just been made redundant [in Autumn 2009], when I received a call from a group of property owners who were looking to invest in an airline. They asked me if I was willing to help them."


Now confirmed by Mr Halstead as a total lie, who on earth would have believed it in the first place?

Wouldn't you have loved to have read the business plan? :) As I recall, the Thames Valley Police HQ is just down the road from the airport...

Baby Branson? Apprentice Del Boy more like!

Are new pilots so desperate to get a job that they would take a risk such as this without getting cast iron guarantees?

No RYR - I had read a different new article elsewhere and not the Times article. Forget what I posted earlier...!

The chap is a chancer and a lunatic it would appear. He forgot or never heard the Warren Buffet rule number 1 of management:

Ignorance is no defence in the act of impersonation. I have no sympathy for him whatsoever.

Given the article I read today, some would suggest perhaps that Gillig - I mean Halstead - should be given a one-way ticket himself...:=

I assume that the CAA who, either in economic regulator mode or in safety regulator mode, or both, have the responsibility for preventing this kind of thing, adopted their usual posture that it's nothing to do with them?

They have presumably found some miniscule technicality that lets them off the hook of regulatory failure, once again?

The CAA is required by the law under which they operate to ensure that people setting up quasi/pseudo-airlines with no finance or knowledge do not hire AOC holders to fly for them, while hauling in money from advance sales with no prospect of the services being delivered before bankruptcy intervenes.

Even if the operation is well-funded and kosher (few are) the hirer - the pseudo-airline - is required to show the level of knowledge, expertise and resources needed to exercise effective safety oversight of the AOC holder, ie to audit every technical aspect of the operation very thoroughly indeed and keep on doing so..

That the CAA did nothing effective, it appears, is no surprise. They are focussed solely on collecting extortionate fees for issuing approvals/licences/whatevers on behalf of EASA, and then delaying things as long as possible while incompetent Inspectors/Surveyors/Whatevers display their amost total ignorance of the rules they seek to impose. I have the impression that many end up there because they are unemployable in the industry.

The rule of thumb used to be that anyone starting an airline, or a quasi-airline, pseudo-airline, call it what you will, had to show the CAA real, in-the-bank, unencumbered working capital of 6 months worth of running costs, fixed, semi-fixed and variable, for the planned operation, regardless of sales income. That was a pretty accurate forecast of the minimum negative cash flow of a new start-up, regardless of the entrepreneur's fantasies about income expressed in the technicolour wonderland of MBA-style spreadsheets.

Proper working capital is a safety issue just as much as an economic one.

As many have pointed out above, this delusional lunatic has form. He did the same in Jersey a few years back. Baby Branson needs to do time on a ramp cleaning aircraft and perhaps learning a thing or two.

Were the CAA out, having a group hug in the subsidised restaurant on the day they let this one through, again? Or perhaps they felt the need for some team-building? No, silly me, it was tea-time and they had all gone home.

Farcity Express
 

Varsity Express: Baby Branson’s bogus business - Times Online

How on earth did the airport management allow this to happen. It does not reflect well especially for any customers who've lost their money on tickets

You will probably notice that this thread has grown somewhat quickly. You are right. We have decided to re-instate those threads and posts that were initially deleted for reasons that concerned us. This particular situation is not good news for aviation, and startup operations in particular. Somehow these get started without all the nous and vitals needed.

We are, therefore, allowing open house, subject to normal PPRuNe rules regarding taste, abuse, snide and personal attacks, so that our knowledgeable posters can comment sensibly and honestly on a story that should never have happened. Some irrelevant posts will, however, be removed.

Hi Folks,

Just thought I'd share that I actually went for an interview for an FO job at VE back in January. As a very good friend of mine who also attended said..."It looked like sh*t, It certainly smelt like sh*t, so there was no need to taste it to find out it was sh*t!"

I think I know of 1 of the guys who was sucker punched by this Imbecile and you cant help but feel sorry for him and the other 3.

Both Halstead and Lawrence avoided eye contact when asked anything I wanted to know about Varsity. They were very edgy and wouldnt digress any information about the "investors" or company plans to get another larger 70 seat a/c. I knew I couldnt trust them within 2 mins so instantly alarm bells were ringing.

People like Halstead and Lawrence make me sick. Im ashamed to have even sat in the same room.

CIT

"How on earth did the airport management allow this to happen''

What has this to do with the airport management?? It's a public airport !! An airport cannot do in depth checks on any one who want to operate into it. Edinburgh and Oxford got taken by this lot!

Well Well

How unexpected

I Notice Mr OXJOB is very Quiet at the moment after his songs of Praise for the New Airline and its Wonderful founder.

I Would like to know if OXJOB is another ficticious name for Mr MH

Makes you wonder.

I Only hope The Police take this up as this is a total con and has taken Money from people who have paid out there Life Savings to Mr MH.

I am glad to see all the removed threads re-instated so pepole can see how everbody was warned but no one in authority appeared to Listen.

This article sums it up.

Varsity Express: Baby Branson’s bogus business - Times Online

Mr Halstead obtained significant press coverage in the run up to his latest business venture. Certain journo's have been made to look a bit silly. I suspect a few pencil's are now been sharpened to settle the score.

Anyone handing over £15k to this chap, without doing their own due diligence, is equally foolish. His reputation preceeds him in turboprop land, and the demise of this excuse of a business was widely anticipated both on pprune and in crew rooms across the land.

No. Certain journos were lied to. Let's call it what it is.

Journos are lied to all the time. Only the silly ones help lend authority to the lies by printing them, instead of checking them.

Capot #94
 

Thank you Capot for the first really cogent and apposite posting. Watch this space!
Monom

Checkboard, once upon a time, there were no journalists.
Back then there were only reporters, and really good reporters became correspondents.

Back then, at the bottom of the trade, you had the cadet reporter, who trained, worked under, and was mentored by senior reporters. They learned the trade, the art if you will, on-the-job, from the senior paractitioners.

When they got some experience, and if they had demonstrated some smarts, they became reporters and were sent out on their own.

After many years, and if they produced some good stuff, they may have become senior reporters themselves, and if they had shown any significant flair or aptitude for any particular field, they may have become a specialist "subject area reporter", eg "Aviation Correspondent" or similar.

At about the same time, if they were really good, they would have been noticed by the editor or chief editor, and may have been elevated to the level of "investigative reporter" and detailed to delve into some subject(s) of grave concern to the masses - or whatever.

During most of this time (long gone) they would have taken the time to "check their facts" and most stories of any real significance were reasonably complete and well balanced when published The most important thing is, they took the time to prepare a story.

The media took some professional pride in the quality of it's product, and at least did try to get it right. On occasion, they also willingly printed appologies and retractions when they got it wrong.

Today, very little of that happens, none really meaningful anyway.

Today, time has been removed from the equation.
Today, everything is "now".

This has had a number of bad effects.

There is very little time to "gather the real facts", let alone "check those facts" . What is a fact anyway ? How do I tell the difference between fact and bull ? Deadline approaching - have to produce something - so go with what I've got.

Thus, a "story" is printed.
Is it a report ? - No, it is a "one off" story.
Source ? Rarely stated, often unattributed, credibility - questionable.

Subsequent events occur, days, perhaps weeks later, or other information comes to hand, that is/are related to the first story.

What happens ? Is the first report "updated and expanded" or is it treated just as a "new stand alone" ? In most cases, the latter.

In any case, I am sure you get the drift.

The trouble is, today, everyone is a "journalist", just pumping out whatever they can in this "now" world, mostly superficial, with very little analysis or depth to it.

To be blunt, no one "reports any more" they all "journalise".
How often do journalists re-hash each other's material ?
Even worse than that, how may times these days do you see journalists interviewing each other ?

The net result is, most of what you see and read today in the media is, lets be kind, just garbage.

That is why boards like this exist, so that people who are interested in some particular area of activity, can get "inside information" from "behind the scenes", something that "repoters" used to at least try and do, but journalists now rarely even make the pretence of trying to do.

This whole thread, this whole sorry story, Mark-2, proves that the media does not do it's job any more.

This story proves that the media will print garbage, and although obviously not intending to do so, does effectively assist, both bofore and during the fact, these scammers, by lending credibility to them. They themselves have become so desperate for copy that they themselves are easily succered by the self publicists etc et al.

Therefore, MR MODERATOR(S), be mindull of all this, and do not delete "warning" posts, unless there is a really significant and valid reason to do so.