Stoddart comments on OzJet failure
OzJet chairman Paul Stoddart has told the ABC’s AM program this morning that he misjudged the market.
“It’s very sad, very sad for our staff who’ve put in so much effort and for the passengers that were travelling with us, but sadly there wasn’t enough of them,” he said.
“We’ve given it four months and we said we’d give it six months.
“Clearly, we can see the forward bookings and the trend that traditionally comes after the Australia Day holiday when business goes back to work – it just hasn’t happened for us.
“We thought we had a different plan but unfortunately it didn’t translate into that all important ‘bums on seats’,” he said.
“As for staff, well to lose one member of staff is one too many, but we’re probably going to have to lose 50 or 60, which is really, really sad.”
Reports suggest the experiment has cost Mr Stoddart up to $6 million.
Qantas spokesman Rob Guerney says Qantas will take care of passengers affected by the cancellation of flights.
“For OzJet passengers that have already started their journey and are stranded up until and including the 24th of March, Qantas will carry those passengers free of charge if they’ve already commenced their journey, if they let us know by this Friday the 17th of March,” he said.
“We’ll make an arrangement to book them on Qantas flights free of charge.”
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