RIP Aeroduck
 

Drove through Newcastle this morning and according to the radio Aeropelican will close down in 6 to 8 weeks. Grabbed a local rag, and according to the front page, the land for the airport is supposed to be rezoned residential, while they move operations to Williamtown, sell the two remaining otters, and start a service to Maitland, Cessnock and Taree with its remaining Bandit. It would also appear they hope to in the long term buy Beech 1900's to replace the Bandit out of Willy. For now they will operate only with the Bandit which they have admitted is payload limited (therefore a complete dud in my words).

Somehow, I think they are just trying to convince the council the business will go on at Williamtown justifying them rezoning the Belmont land residential. The council is having the pressure put on it through the courts to buy the airport land back as it zoned it for essential infrastructure, therefore the operators cannot sell the land for profit. However, they want the council to pay full residential rates for it ($15 million) and the council cannot afford this. If they lose the court case, they will be pressured into rezoning the land residential.

In the meantime, Aeropelican continues to operate at a loss and keeps pressuring the council on the basis that it cannot make a profit. Surprise also that it has come out that one of Newcastles big time property developers has held a mortgage over the airport land for the last couple of years, and therefore pulls the strings. It was always the hope of developers that they could convince the council to get rid of the airport and develop prime waterfront land there.

One of the top surviving regional airlines in Australia falls, arguably to inept management and big business motives. A sad day for the local community, and for aviation in Australia.

:*

our economy survived the world wide recession, and is humming along beautifully, yet avaition, in every field (except airlines) is slipping thurther into extinction.


Aeropelican will be missed. and it will be yet another sad do for General aviation in OZ.

A great disappointment to the dedicated pilots working at Aeroduck as the company had great potential if it was allowed to be run properly. Things have been smelling rather fishy for some time now. Good luck to the pilots remaining, several saw the light and have already found other jobs. I believe one has already gone back to PNG and another is going. Good luck to a good bunch of people.
As for the bandit it did not serve the purpose - carrying 14 pax and sometimes having to leave baggage behind.

My understanding is that they are looking at purchasing 2- 3 Metro 3's to replace the Bandit and the Twin Otters.

This afternoon's news stated that they were closing down operations at Aeropelican itself in 6 weeks in the hope that the land will be rezoned for residential purposes.

As to getting 3 metro's, how long do you think they will compete with the Q-Link, Jetstar and Virgin a/c out of Willy? Don't Eastern still run the Dash 8 in there? The Sydney - Newcastle market has always been the bread and butter for Aeropelican, and time and time again it has been proven the Maitland, Cessnock etc. markets are much more difficult to make a profit on.

As to how many people from down the Belmont end of Newcastle would drive to Willy anyhow when it is an hour from Belmont, and not much more to drive down the freeway to Sydney.

Me suspects there is only one motive in closing Belmont airport.

Correct me if im wrong but..........

After AN fell over, didnt Lake Macquarie City Council make some ruling that the zoning of the land at PEC be such that IT COULD NOT BE SOLD OFF FOR HOUSING?!? - So as to stop the Mark & Mark meat-heads simply selling up and ****canning the whole operation ??

Who in their right mind would drive away from Sydney and deal with the $hit-fight that is WLM when you can rock up at the duck 5 mins prior to ETD and just jump on board.

Sad sad sad

The council rezoned the land as essential infrastructure. The owners therefore are trying to make the council buy the land off them as they can do nothing with it. They are taking the council to court, and claim that they have to pay market value for what it was worth before they rezoned - approx $15 million. They are also trying to get the zoning reversed by arguing that an airport operation is not sustainable on the site. They are supplementing this argument by shutting the operation down.



:(

Rumour has it that the owners must prove financial hardship in order to get the council to rezone the land and this was the plan from the beginning. Shame shame. It looks like the whole situation has been a conspiracy by the owner to make millions.

There`s actually a lot of truth in your attempted sarcasm 23 M I a R - Aeropelican has indeed served Novocastrians and the Newcastle area admirably, for several decades now, and is FAR more conveniently located than Williamtown.

How true, you`re (note the spelling) quite right - the benefit of Aeropelican`s sale will be to a very few, whilst the disadvantage will affect tens of thousands of commuters, and cost a significant number of employees...not ONLY pilots....their livelihood.

Let`s hope that with the operation shut down the court case drags on ad infinitum :O

I can't believe The Duck will be no more. It was the most reliable and interesting operator around SY (my opinion of course).

Quite a good return on an investment where they sold two of the otters earlier for reportedly close to the price they paid for the whole business 12 months earlier.

Seems like the cancer within Australia at the moment - Real Estate. Anything of value can potentially make more money being residential, bugger everything else. We will soon have a nation of houses but with no infrastructure.

Wasn't Aeropelican land actually on a lease from the government however? With rumours circulating that Warnervale and Cooranbong will close in the foreseeable future, and the rapidly expanding population around this area, it will be a shame to see this airport go.

The Metro groundschool has already started. The airline plans to use one of the Metro 23's that were operated by Horizon. The owner of Aeroduck owns the aircraft.

The airline plans to make NTL a hub and may introduce flights to other NSW towns from NTL (sounds like Impulse V2).

Ahhhhhh.

The sound of 331-12's at WLM again. The only sound better would be the sound of 331-14GR/HRs......

K

Standby today, rumour has it there will be an interesting announcement.

Closing at the end of this month.

:( :mad: :ugh:

Who has bought the Otters? Where are they going to be operated?

Residents rally to save Aeropelican

http://abc.net.au/news/australia/nsw...3/s1327847.htm

Save Belmont Airport petition

http://www.petitiononline.com/aero2425/petition.html


(no association - just found on a google search for news...)