Australia’s OzJet suspends scheduled services

OzJet chairman Paul Stoddart announced that his Australian start up business class only carrier OzJet had suspended all scheduled services with immediate effect because of a lack of support.

He said “the decision to immediately stop flying scheduled services was made with great regret”.

Stoddart added in a statement: “Unfortunately, for whatever reasons, we have not had the support we needed to operate in that environment against big, established carriers.”

He added: “It’s very, very disappointing, particularly, I’m sure, for those people who had started travelling regularly with us between Melbourne and Sydney and many of our very diligent and loyal employees.

”Sad to say, there have not been enough of those regular customers and we will now concentrate, with a reduced workforce, on charter operations.

“We have given it a go in a very tough area of the Australian aviation industry and, as much as we would have hoped, it has become clear that we were not going to achieve in the immediate future the kind of revenues that were needed to keep OzJet in the air as the airline was envisaged.

“Charter operations may well be more rewarding.

“As a charter operation, OzJet will inevitably downsize, but any staff not retained will be paid their full entitlements.

“The scheduled services experience has been very costly to me personally, but my thoughts are more for those who have worked so tirelessly only to find that, as hard as we have tried, ultimately scheduled services were not successful.”

OzJet will retain its Air Operator’s Certificate, a minimum of two Boeing 737 aircraft for charter work and about 30 per cent of its staff.

“OzJet will focus its future flying around ad hoc and VIP charters, something there is clearly a demand for in Australia as little, if any, competition exists in that market,” Stoddart said.

Stoddart said that booked passengers could either receive a refund or transfer without any additional cost to Qantas, “which has kindly offered to assist”.

Ozjet began flying budget business class services between Sydney and Melbourne at the end of November and had planned services to other domestic destinations this year, but recently delayed the roll out of its Perth service citing lack of demand for the overnight service and the intention of replacing it with a daytime service, when an aircraft was available.

Before the launch of the airline last year, Stoddard said Ozjet’s initial fleet of three Boeing 737s would eventually increase to ten, each containing sixty business-class seats, but the pre Christmas launch and OzJet’s inability to break Qantas’ control of major corporate accounts, had led aviation industry leaders to question the ongoing viability and survival of the airline.

It is understood that Stoddart has to very large extent been funding the operation himself having made is fortune with his UK airline European Aviation, one of the world’s largest suppliers of aviation industry spare parts.

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