„Mér þykir mjög leiðinlegt að tilkynna ykkur að Astraeus Airlines mun hætta starfsemi nú þegar."

Þetta segir Hugh Parry, stofnandi og núverandi forstjóri breska flugfélagsins Astraeus, í minnibréfi til starfsmanna Astreus sem sent var í morgun.

Eins og Viðskiptablaðið greindi frá fyrr í dag stefndi allt í að Astraeus yrði gjaldþrota í dag eða næstu daga. Nú er það staðfest, Astreus mun hætta starfsemi strax í dag. Astraeus er í eigu eignarhaldsfélagsins Fengs, sem jafnframt er eigandi íslensku ferðaskrifstofunnar Iceland Express. Fengur er síðan í eigu Pálma Haraldssonar.

Í bréfi Parry kemur fram að stjórn félagsins hafi fundað í morgun og ljóst mætti vera að ekki væru forsendur fyrir áframhaldandi starfsemi. Félagið hefur nú þegar óskað eftir slitameðferð. Í Bretlandi ríkir sú venja að fyrirtæki eru sett í slitameðferð hjá þar til gerðum lögfræði- eða endurskoðunarskrifstofum, og verður slitameðferð Astraeus í höndum Zolfo Cooper.

Hugh Parry er sem fyrr segir stofnandi Astraeus. Hann segir í fyrrgreindu bréfi að það taki sig sárt að þurfa að tilkynna starfsfólki sínu um endalok félagsins. Parry hætti störfum hjá félaginu í lok árs 2007 en var ráðinn aftur í október sl.

Hann segir í bréfinu að fjárhagslegt tjón Astraeus í sumar hafi verið töluvert vegna viðskipta við Iceland Express. Þannig hafi verið skortur á áhafnarmeðlimum auk þess sem miklar tæknilegar bilanir í vélum félagsins hafi reynst kostnaðarsamar. Þannig hafi „kostnaður verið yfir tekjum á lykiltímabilinu þannig að ekki hafi verið til staðar nægilegt lausafé til að fara með inn í vetrarmánuðina,“ segir í lauslegri þýðingu Viðskiptablaðsins.

Þá segir Parry að hann hafi af beiðni Pálma Haraldssonar, snúið aftur til starfa í október sl. með því skilyrði að lausafjárvanda félagsins hefði verið mætt. Þannig hafi Pálmi sett um 5 milljónir Sterlingspunda inn í félagið. Hins vegar hafi væntingar um verkefni í Asíu, Suður Ameríku og í Mið-austurlöndum ekki gengið eftir.

„Þetta er augljóslega ekki staðan sem ég átti von á þegar ég sneri aftur til starfa fyrir Astreus og það er tekur mig mjög sárt persónulega að þurfa að loka fyrirtækis sem ég stofnaði sjálfur fyrir tæpum 10 árum síðan,“ segir Parry í bréfinu til starfsmannanna.

Bréfið má sjá í heild sinni hér að neðan:

From: Hugh Parry
Sent: 21 November 2011 12:25
To: #All Staff
Subject: MEMO TO ALL STAFF

21 November 2011
MEMO TO ALL STAFF

It is with great sadness that I must advise you that Astraeus Airlines has ceased operations with immediate effect.

The Board of Directors met this morning and concluded that with little visibility on start dates for proposed winter contracts, the forecast losses during the winter period were simply too great to  allow Astraeus to continue in business.  The board has resolved to place Astraeus into administration today. Mr Nick Cropper of Zolfo Cooper will be appointed in due course and will contact each member of staff.

This news will come as a great shock to many of you, and I appreciate that by this point in this note your thoughts are turning – quite correctly – to your own future. However, I have nevertheless set out below a very brief history of the recent events that have led to this decision.

As you know, I was the founding CEO of Astraeus and left the company in December 2007 at the point when it had started the transition from charter to ACMI business.  The ACMI world is a challenging one and is best served through long-term year-round contracts which avoid the seasonal peaks and troughs of the standard leisure market.

The start of the Astraeus ACMI model encapsulated the best of these aims with contracts with bmi, Ghana International, Palmair, Trawel and ,of course, Iceland Express.  Unfortunately for Astraeus, and in keeping with the difficult economic climate, these long-term contracts disappeared one by one leaving only Iceland Express as a long term client.

It is true to say that we had a very successful summer operations-wise with Thomas Cook and Thomson, and both were keen to work with us again next year.  However, these are summer-only contracts and this leaves a difficult winter period to negotiate.  This was not helped by the Icelandic summer season which is somewhat shorter than the traditional UK charter market adding to the stress of winter placements.

The summer 2011 season was also severely impacted by operational issues on the IEX and MOD contracts.  Whether through crew shortages, or engines requiring shop visits halfway through the expected normal lifetime, the fact remains that costs outstripped revenue during the key summer months so we did not have the usual cash reserves required to take us through the lean winter months.

When I was asked by Palmi to rejoin Astraeus on 19th October 2011 it was on the basis that the company’s immediate financial needs had been recently met by a £5m funding injection (taking his overall investment in Astraeus to £25m) and that the future commercial outlook was strong.  Regrettably, the expected contracts in Asia, South America and the Middle East failed to materialise on a timely basis and directly led to today’s announcement.

This was clearly not the position I expected when I returned to Astraeus and it is of great personal sadness that today I have to close down the company that I started almost 10 years ago.  A bright future was just around the corner, but sometimes we are not blessed with the luxury of time to achieve that goal.

It only remains for me to place on record my sincere thanks to all our fantastic staff, who have given so much to the company in good times and troubled times.  I wish you all the best for the future wherever it may take you and I am just so sorry that it did not work out the way we had all hoped.



Hugh Parry

21 November 2011