Maxjet share trading halted
By Kevin Done, Aerospace Correspondent
Friday Dec 7 2007 15:40

Trading in the shares of Maxjet Airways, one of the new breed of all-business class long-haul airlines, was suspended on Friday in London, as the US group struggled to put together a financial rescue package.
The airline, which started flying transatlantic services in November 2005 between London Stansted and New York JFK airports, raised net proceeds of £47.3m in an initial public offering in June, becoming the second all-business airline after UK rival Silverjet to list on London's alternative investment market.

It has faced mounting losses in the face of surging fuel prices and lower than expected fare yields. Higher maintenance costs for its ageing fleet of Boeing 767 aircraft have also depressed financial performance.
After being launched at 138p a share, the Maxjet share price rose briefly to a peak of 140p, but it has declined steeply in recent months, falling to a low of 73½p before trading was halted on Friday. Maxjet said it had requested the suspension "with immediate effect pending clarification of its financial position".

In an attempt to shore up confidence it issued a second statement last night "to confirm to its employees, customers and suppliers that business continues to function as normal".

Maxjet services operated from Stansted on Friday to both New York and Los Angeles.

As senior executives criss-crossed the North Atlantic to try to secure financial backing - an effort made more difficult by deteriorating conditions in world financial markets - the group said that an announcement about the company's financial position would be made "as soon as ­possible".

Maxjet had losses of $31.9m in the first six months of the year as it was affected by higher than expected costs from aircraft maintenance and rising fuel prices, while it expanded its transatlantic operations.
It is one of a group of four carriers - including Eos of the US, the UK's Silverjet and L'Avion in Paris - launched in the past two-and-a-half years with all-business class services in an attempt to challenge the legacy carriers such as British Airways, American Airlines, Air France and Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) on long-haul routes out of Europe and the US.
The airline made a net loss of $79m in 2006, its first full year of operations, on a turnover of $41.1m.

 

Anybody got an interview with these guys? You might want to take note.

 

Good luck to all the employees. I hope that the company can right itself. Hang in there guys! Tom

 

Unfortunately, this appears to be the beginning of a company on life-support. Been there, done that, got (3) t-shirts.

Make sure you get those resumes out guys, just in case.

Best of luck.

 

Was called for an interview however was advised of financial troubles by inside source. Also form what I was told, they have established a "B" fund for new hires. Too bad, i wanted to go there but happy I chose otherwise and stayed at regional for now as Capt. Good luck guys, I know quite a few there and there all good people. hop they make it.

 

Best of luck to all at MaxJet. You guys got me to STN many a night in the Summer of 2006 during my stint at Atlas.

 

EOS can't be too far behind!

 

Do you know something about EOS that others at EOS don't know about?

 

EOS just got an influx of investment capital, and has enough cash to fly 2-3 more years. Plus, they're growing by 2-3 jets.

 

New routes too. Paris and Zurich. They plan to start operating from EWR as well.