JetGreen had no landing slots for most Dublin flights

THE budget air carrier which collapsed after only a week in business had no landing slots at Dublin airport for the bulk of flights it was selling.

JetGreen Airways had not even applied for landing slots for many of its services although it sold more than 40,000 tickets, some for as little as 1. Despite the collapse passengers stranded abroad will have costs reimbursed, the Commissioner for Aviation Regulation Bill Prasifka promised yesterday.

The Dublin-based carrier, which began daily flights to Spanish cities Malaga and Alicante on May 4, did not have an air operator’s certificate and was not considered an airline.

Instead, despite the company name and its registered address as Omega House, Dublin Airport, JetGreen was treated as a tour operator and its flights were operated by Luftidir Icelandic, a subsidiary of Icelandair.

The company had paid almost E500,000 into a bond run by the Commission for Aviation Regulation. Mr Prasifka promised this money will be used to refund passengers who had to pay other airlines to get home. He was also considering chartering planes to bring home those left stranded abroad.

Mr Prasifka defended his position yesterday against criticism by Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary. Citing the collapse four months ago of Cork-based airline JetMagic, Mr O’Leary said the regulator should “stamp out fly-by- night airlines or resign”.

“Michael O’Leary calls for my resignation regularly basis, so I always carefully consider each such request. The day we manipulate our rules to protect Ryanair is the day hell freezes over,” said Mr Prasifka.

Speaking on Morning Ireland, he said the decision to licence JetGreen was correct.

“Before we gave them a licence we ensured they fully complied with all the statutory criteria.

“The promoters and managers had very substantial aviation expertise and had made a very substantial commitment to the company. They also fully fulfilled their bonding requirements,” he said.

A number of business people behind JetGreen were also involved in an airline called FreshAer.com, which went out of business last August after it emerged it did not have a full licence to operate flights from here.

At the end of July last, the aviation regulator’s office took the unprecedented step of posting a public notice on its website warning FreshAer “is not licensed by the commission and is therefore acting in contravention of the Irish Travel Trade legislation”.

FreshAer chairman and chief executive John Lepp reacted angrily to the commission’s public notice, and insisted it was “talking bunkum” and that the company was not subject to the commission’s jurisdiction.

That company was also tied in with Icelandair and considered itself bonded by the Icelandic airline. An investor in FreshAer, Guernsey-based financier Colin Gervaise-Brasier, 61, was also JetGreen’s biggest shareholder.

In its advertising slogan, JetGreen described itself as “the low cost tour operator with a high-service ethos”.