Sad news for Fly My Sky with Commercial Helicopters Ltd, the company that operates the airline, going into liquidation yesterday on the 29th June 2021.
Fly My Sky's final services were operated by BN Islander ZK-SFK (ISLAND 2 KILO) from Auckland to Claris (FS15) and return (FS9015) on the same afternoon. So ended 23 years of servicing Great Barrier Island, from 1998 to 2008 as Mountain Air and from 2008 as Fly My Sky.
The airline's facebook page is no longer live and the status board on the website tells the sad story.
A history of Fly My Sky can be found here... http://3rdlevelnz.blogspot.com/2011/11/fly-my-sky.html
 |
| Fly My Sky's status on their website |
Stuff's story...
The operator of Auckland airline Fly My Sky has gone into liquidation. The registered company behind the third tier airline Commercial Helicopters had Clive Bish of Ecovis KGA appointed as a liquidator on Wednesday. Fly My Sky’s website has been stripped of information and the company’s contact numbers have been disconnected. Commercial Helicopters was owned by Christine and Dylan Young and Marcham Trustee Company, who bought the business in March last year. It operates out of Auckland Airport and started services to Great Barrier Island as Mountain Air more than 20 years ago. Commercial Helicopters has been in continuous operation for more than 40 years, originally starting in 1980 flying helicopters. Now the business was exclusively a fixed-wing twin-engine operation. It has provided private aircraft charter flights throughout New Zealand and had a fleet of four twin-engine Britten-Norman Islanders aircraft, each carrying up to nine passengers. In April last year Fly My Sky was one of several small airlines to receive Government funding to support vital air links to remote islands. As part of the Government’s $600 million aviation support package it fast-tracked funding of up to $1.7m to maintain those air links. Commercial Helicopters received three rounds of Covid-19 wage subsidies worth $156,000 for between 13 and 20 staff.
My Favourite airline pretty much gone. I was a frequent flyer to the Barrier and always loved the airline. Sad to see them go.
ReplyDeleteFly My Sky have been around for a very long time so must have been profitable. Perhaps the airline part of the business can be split off and sold as a going concern.
ReplyDeleteCommercial Helicopters Ltd is the airline - nothing more. My observation is FMS were losing more and more market share as Barrier Air transformed itself to the airline it is now. The new owners took over a matter of days before lockdown so they have had a hard road.
DeleteDamn. Several hundred dollars of travel already booked with FMS out to the island. Dont really like Barrier Air. As they grew they seemed to lose the family feel to it. Barrier are a good operator no doubt, I just preferred FMS. A big loss to the Barrier Community. I know several people who wont fly with one or the other. All about preference I guess.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking/typing as a long time Barrier resident it leaves us with a monopoly on effective air connection to the mainland.We already have a monopoly on the sea freight/passenger connection which has seen services diminish and prices escalate. Watch this space.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that one of the airlines has gone broke means that the airfares being offered to the public were unsustainably low
Delete“prices escalate“ - you mean increase to a level that actually represents the costs of operating? Fares to the island (and freight charges) are some of the lowest for any route in the country, barely sustainable, as has now been proven.
DeleteVery sad to hear. Always preferred Fly My Skys service over Barrier Airs. Nervous now of what this means now that Barrier Air has a monopoly, not a fan of how they operate.
ReplyDeleteThere is always the ferry, FMS were alway going to lose using state of the ark aircraft against Barrier's modern fleet
Delete