The regional discount airline REDjet filed for bankruptcy protection and sent its workers home, the company announced.
REDjet suspended flights in March, giving customers a two-day warning that its service would cease “until further notice.” The Barbados-based airline had been in negotiations with the Barbadian and Guyanese governments to secure financial subsidies to keep flying. But these negotiations were unsuccessful, the airline owes creditors and passengers an undisclosed sum, and on June 7 the company filed to begin proceedings under Barbados’ Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, according to the newspaper Trinidad Express.
REDjet began flights out of Barbados in May 2011, modelling itself after carriers such as the United States’ Southwest Airlines and Europe’s Ryanair. In its first months of operation, REDjet sometimes charged customers nearly a tenth of the fare that its competitor LIAT was charging for the same flight.
See the June, 21, 2012 edition for full coverage.
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