JetGo’s senior management first contacted Shellharbour council about starting a new passenger flight service in the same month administrators believe the embattled company started trading insolvent.
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Shellharbour council has revealed the airline first made contact in June 2016, with the first face-to-face meeting held with council officers in July that year.
“Jetgo's Senior executive/investor first contacted council with interest in commencing RPT services at the Illawarra Regional Airport to Melbourne,” a council spokeswoman told the Mercury.
JetGo first missed the invoice payment date of the 21 January 2018
- Shellharbour council spokeswoman
She said the company was “operating successfully from a number of other regional airports”, giving Shellharbour no inkling of financial troubles.
However, the company’s administrators have told ASIC that the airline may have traded while insolvent “since at least June 30, 2016”.
On Tuesday, the council also revealed JetGo missed an invoice payment – for passenger taxes and mandatory security costs – less than three months after flights out of Albion Park began on October 30, 2017.
“JetGo first missed the invoice payment date of the 21 January 2018,” the spokeswoman said.
With questions circulating about how the city could not have known about the financial troubles within JetGo, the spokeswoman said officers conducted background checks on “airlines of interest” before recommending JetGo as the preferred operator.
“This included reference checks from other councils with airports, along with other airports operators that had JetGo servicing routes from their airports,” she said.
The council, which is owed about $400,000 but is unlikely to receive any money if the company is wound up as expected, said it had not decided whether to take legal actions over the administrators’ claims that JetGo had been trading insolvent for almost two years.
“No decision has been made in relation to this,” the spokeswoman said.
“Council will continue to pursue what avenues it can to successfully recoup the community’s finances in this circumstance.”
She also said the JetGo collapse has led to the council “reviewing the processes, policies and procedures it uses in circumstances such as this”.
“This review will include agreement establishment and debt collection processes,” she said.