Dance clubs plan flying night clubs - report

A British dance music company today said it planned to turn jets from collapsed Australian airline, Ansett, into airborne night clubs.

London-based Ministry of Sound told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio it had put a proposal to Ansett’s administrator to buy four jets.

The company originally planned to begin an airline in Europe but said the Ansett collapse had provided a good opportunity to acquire high quality planes and staff.

Commercial brand director Richard Mergler said with several modifications the planes would recreate the night club experience and fly to dance parties in Australia and overseas.

‘‘We’re going to be doing Sydney-Melbourne to begin with where you fly from Sydney to Melbourne late in the evening, there will be DJs on board, special DJ decks will have been installed into where the business seats were,’’ Mr Mergler said.

Australian transport minister and Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson said the Ministry of Sound would need to speak to the companies which owned the leases on Ansett jets, but was uncertain about safety requirements for flying night clubs.

‘‘That would take a lot of very careful consideration, I don’t think they would get an AOC (Air Operators Certificate) overnight, put it that way,’’ Mr Anderson said.

Formerly Australia’s second largest airline, Ansett was put into voluntary administration in mid-September leaving most of its 16,000 staff jobless.