Sat, Mar 19, 2005
Claims He Had No Choice
Michael Leblanc
apologized to the Canadian Press in a Thursday interview for
shutting down his airline, leaving roughly 17,000 passengers
stranded and 1,350 employees jobless. The shutdown occurred as many
Canadians were preparing to travel for March Break.
"Very clearly, I have deep sorrow for the people whose plans at
school break were shattered, but we didn't have any choice,"
Leblanc told The Canadian Press. He hopes to be able to save part
of the airline, but is uncertain whether that will be possible. The
company has been granted one month to create a plan for its
creditors.
Air traffic controller Nav Canada and the Greater Toronto
Aiports Authority are owed millions according to earlier reports in
The Globe and Mail. Documents filed in Quebec Superior Court said
that Jetsgo had lost about $55 million recently, and that the
airline had a negative net worth of about $19 million.
"When we had to make the tough choice of ceasing operations,
that's because we couldn't ensure any more a reliable operation,"
said Leblanc while defending his decision to ground the fleet last
week. He believes that safety could have been compromised if they
had declared bankruptcy first, as crews and mechanics may not have
shown up for work.
Ticket prices have gone up as much as 50 percent in the week
since Jetsgo folded. Air Canada and WestJet had said that ticket
prices were expected to rise. Leblanc claimed that the other
companies had continually undercut his prices every time they had
tried to raise them. "We have only 10 per cent of the market; it's
not us who lead the industry," he said.
He also felt some pain in his pocket book, as he claims to have
lost $7 million from the demise of the airline. Jetsgo employees
had some difficulty cashing their final paychecks at first, until
the banks were convinced that there was money in the company
accounts to cover them.
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