Questions still remain over EUjet collapse

Mystery surrounds the delay in appointing administrators to failed airline EUjet. While Grant Thornton partners are sorting out the financial affairs of PlaneStation, the airline’s parent company that collapsed with estimated debts of £22million, and subsidiary London Manston Airport Plc, EUjet is not subject to the same rules.

The Irish-registered operator, which was grounded last week with the loss of at least 127 jobs and left more than 5,000 passengers stranded, is still run by its directors, including chief executive P J McGoldrick. The airline is subject to Irish law and an "interim examiner" is understood to have been appointed but this person does not have the power of administrators.

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EUJet doomed from the start

Expert claims airline was doomed from first flight

EUjet was a flawed business model that was bound to fail, according to an airline expert. The low-cost airline and its owner PlaneStation, which also owns Kent International Airport at Manston, crashed into administration on July 26 after the Bank of Scotland pulled the plug on PlaneStation’s credit line, thought to be around £25million.

The collapse left thousands of passengers stranded overseas, cost hundreds of jobs and cast a shadow over the longer-term viability of scheduled services operated out of Kent. It was also embarrassing to Kent County Council which had invested £100,000 in the fledgling airline to bring it to Manston.

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New era dawns at Kent airport

Kent is finally joined by air to the rest of Europe. EUjet’s new low cost services got off to a flying start yesterday when the first flight - a Fokker-100 - took off from Kent International Airport at Manston, at 6.15am for Dublin. It marked the start of a service that is set to boost east Kent and turn Kent at last into an aviation hub. It has already brought 300 new jobs to Thanet and there could be 100 more over the next 18 months.

Flights on day one were 75 per cent full, with more than 600 passengers flying to Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Dublin, Nice and Girona. A smaller number flew back to Manston, reflecting the lack of marketing effort by EUjet at the destination airports. By the end of the year, EUjet will be flying to 22 destinations including Prague, Madrid, Milan, Palma, Malaga, Turin, Edinburgh and Manchester.

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