The owners of Shannon-based charter airline Eirjet have embarked on a last-ditch effort to refinance the struggling company, which suspended all of its flights yesterday amid a deepening financial crisis. Arthur Beesley, Senior Business Correspondent, reports
Eirjet, which operates four Airbus A320 aircraft, is the latest in a line of small charter airlines to encounter serious trading difficulties in a notoriously volatile sector. A number of these operators failed to survive.
Managing director Paul Schutz said the company had assured the Commission for Aviation Regulation, which oversees the sector, that no individual passengers would be discommoded as a result of Eirjet's difficulties.
As the airline's problems worsened in recent days, it moved at the weekend to tell the tour operators that charter its services to make alternative arrangements.
While a note posted on the regulator's website last evening said that Eirjet had ceased trading, Mr Schutz said that was not so.
"We have ceased flight operations. We have not ceased trading as of yet. We took the decision that we could not guarantee services this week. We took that decision to protect passengers," he said.
He declined to quantify the size of financial deficit or specify the nature of the issues that prompted its difficulties.
Mr Schutz was hopeful that the problem could be rectified, but he declined to put a deadline on the effort to raise money. Neither would he say whether the airline was already in discussions with a party or parties about a specific refinancing package.
He said the company's 81 permanent and 51 contract staff had not been put on notice but he acknowledged that failure to resolve the funding problem would have implications for their employment.
Eirjet's clients include Ryanair and Aer Lingus but it mainly provides charter services for travel agencies. Its clients include Abbey Travel, Falcon, Stein Travel, Sunway, JWT, Gerry McMahon Travel, Slattery's and Topflight.
The company's founders include businessman Bernard Healy, owner of Dublin company Idray which controls the travel agencies Omni Tours, Omni Travel, Malaga Express and Faro Express. Eirjet has been flying since December 2004.
