Did you get your last Peace Air paycheck?

[MrWings]

Did you former employees get your last paycheck?

Seems like a lot of people are owed a lot of money.

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/n ... 3c&k=35040

EDMONTON - Peace Air went into receivership owing $3.5 million to unsecured creditors, including more than $380,000 to Edmonton Airports, court documents show.

Receiver PricewaterhouseCoopers is still determining what's owed to the airline's employees and 14 secured creditors that include banks, finance companies and aviation leasing and services firms. But it is expected to be several million dollars.

The book value of the company on March 31 was $4.2 million, including land, equipment, buildings, inventory and accounts receivable, according to the court documents.

The largest amount owed to the 269 unsecured creditors is $894,000 to Erickson & Partners in Trust.

Calgary Airport authority is owed $153,000, Grande Prairie airport almost $93,000 and the town of Peace River, where the airline was located, $84,000.

Peace Air, founded in 1962 and owned since 1994 by former MP Albert Cooper and his wife Wendy, operated charter flights and regular scheduled service between Edmonton and Calgary and communities in northern Alberta and B.C.

It ceased operations May 20, and Cooper said at the time that a slow winter, a downturn in the oilpatch, and high fuel and maintenance costs combined to ground the company.

He's also said in the past he's suffered by having to move flights to the international after Edmonton Airports brought in the 10-passenger limit at City Centre.

Edmonton Airport spokesperson Traci Bednard said Tuesday they had been working with Cooper for months to arrange a payback schedule.

"We needed to see some changes, but we didn't want to put the company under. He had been very open about the need for a significant shift in business and a restructuring plan.

Peace Air was a viable company that provided a good service for many years, and putting them under would have affected a great many people, Bednard said.

"It's tough. There are no black and white answers to this. We've worked with carriers before on repayments, and this is the first time we've ever seized aircraft."

The authority seized three aircraft after the company said it was folding.

Bednard wasn't sure of the status of the aircraft, considering Edmonton Airports is an unsecured creditor.

Secured creditors and employees are first in line for money when assets are sold through receivership, with unsecured creditors dividing up what's left.

The 10-passenger limit at City Centre was not to blame for Peace Air's demise, as some have suggested, Bednard said. The airline was not using all its allotted times at the airport anyway, she added. The increasing number of Peace River residents driving the two hours to Grande Prairie to catch lower-cost flights on WestJet or Air Canada probably had an effect, she said.

Peace Air was flying into both Edmonton airports, but abandoned City Centre altogether in the few weeks before it folded in favour of the international, where it could use its 19-seater planes.

Grande Prairie's Swanberg Air earlier this month started three-day-a-week non-stop service between that city and the international.

Mike Arcand, vice-president at Penticton-based Contract Aero Structures, said they supplied Alberta aircraft service workers on a contract basis to Peace Air near the end. "We paid the workers, but Peace Air didn't pay us the $20,000 we're owed, and that's a lot of money for a small company. You have to wonder how they continued to operate for so long when they hadn't paid their bills."

He also wondered how an airline can go broke in Alberta's economy when other companies are ordering new planes.

Officials at Alberta CityLink of Medicine Hat, which is owed almost $400,000, or Edmonton's Alta Flights Inc., listed as a secured creditor, were not immediately available for comment.

CityLink operates a commuter connection between Medicine Hat and Calgary, as well as aircraft leasing and sales under parent company Bar XH Air.

[heropsychodreamer]

Does anyone know if the Esso is still running in CYPE? Formerly owned by Peace Air... I don't imagine they got to keep it.

Also curious about Cooper's hockey team; the Peace AIR Navigators.

[turkey20]

More like what happened to the Peace Air Bus for the Navigators? Upstairs at Peace Air really knew where to put their money!

[Chaffey]

3 weeks before they went under, were they not hiring on avcanada. I got an interview with them in that time. They said I'd be flying within a year.

After I found out the pay was $1500/month for ramp and that they got rid of the pc12, I said to Larry W... to forget hiring me for that job. Im so glad I didnt take that .

[shitdisturber]

Does anyone know if the Esso is still running in CYPE? Formerly owned by Peace Air... I don't imagine they got to keep it.

Also curious about Cooper's hockey team; the Peace AIR Navigators.

I was in there a couple of weeks ago and the Esso was closed. Hopefully Esso will find someone to operate the kiosk and give NAC some competition.

[tofo]

someone to operate the kiosk and give NAC some competition.

Why?

how about one company runs a sched that makes money and owners have no excuses to pay shiite money?

[MrWings]

someone to operate the kiosk and give NAC some competition.

Why?

how about one company runs a sched that makes money and owners have no excuses to pay shiite money?

I think it was the fuel kiosk that was mentioned. No competition fuel is bad for the consumer.

And do you really think R would stop having the pilots wash his truck because he was making a pile of money on a sched?

[flyinphil]

You mean people actually have to wash company vehicles?? Forget it! I'd quit now. That is way to high a price to pay.

I have known RK for 20 years and he has provided a lot of opportunity for fledgeling pilots in good times and bad.

[shitdisturber]

someone to operate the kiosk and give NAC some competition.

Why?

how about one company runs a sched that makes money and owners have no excuses to pay shiite money?

Because as somebody mentioned, competition is good for business. Especially when you've got someone who will remain nameless as the sole fuel operator at a relatively major airport. Imagine this scenario; you land at an airport with legal fuel etc and pull up to the pumps, you then by chance have words with this scruffy looking character with an attitude problem who tells you to get lost he won't serve you since it's his fuel kiosk. If you were VFR, you're now screwed, you don't have enough fuel to get anywhere else.

[MrWings]

Former Peace Air owner, Albert Cooper, now pushing nuclear power plants.

You'd think they'd have picked a spokesman that didn't already screw his community over. Would you trust this guy?

Bruce Power representative speaks out

[Mostly Harmless]

someone to operate the kiosk and give NAC some competition.

Why?

how about one company runs a sched that makes money and owners have no excuses to pay shiite money?

Because as somebody mentioned, competition is good for business. Especially when you've got someone who will remain nameless as the sole fuel operator at a relatively major airport. Imagine this scenario; you land at an airport with legal fuel etc and pull up to the pumps, you then by chance have words with this scruffy looking character with an attitude problem who tells you to get lost he won't serve you since it's his fuel kiosk. If you were VFR, you're now screwed, you don't have enough fuel to get anywhere else.

Well then, don't pick a fight with any scruffy looking characters until after your tanks have been fueled. Duh!

RK is a piece of work and one should avoid working for him.

[mechanical12]

well as a ex employee of the company I didn't get my last paycheque, as they talked me into working the first week of may, so because of that, my severence was to be paid at the end of may. of course they went out of business before then, so I was out my vacation pay, as well as a weeks wages. I enjoyed all the employees that I worked with, as we all got along well. I ended up in a better position after they went under, so if I only see $5 from what they owe me, I am doing better then I was when I was there.