Maxjet declares bankruptcy and cancels all flights
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Merry Christmas from Maxjet. The discount all-business class airline shut down all its operations today — on Christmas Eve — when it declared bankruptcy earlier in the day.
The airline’s demise was no surprise — see this post — but passengers are now left scrambling to find alternate ways to and from their destinations, with some help.
MAXjet said it was working with rival all-business class Eos Airlines to find alternative routes. Meanwhile, Continental Airlines and Silverjet Aviation Ltd., another all-business class carrier, said they would honor limited numbers of MAXjet tickets.
“Honoring” tickets doesn’t mean they’ll do it entirely for free, but the cost is minimal. Continental’s rules for accepting these Maxjet tickets state:
MAXjet customers will be accepted for travel on a standby basis on Continental flights between Los Angeles/Las Vegas/Newark and London Gatwick from Dec. 24, 2007 through January 6, 2008. Passengers will be charged a $50 per flight segment ticketing fee, plus any applicable taxes and security fees. Continental will waive the current fuel service charge normally required for Newark to London passengers.
Note that they don’t state that they’ll transport you in business class, just that they’ll transport you on a standby basis. Lesson: If you want to fly in business class, and if Eos or Silverjet will take you, take advantage of that (especially if it’s the superior service at Eos). Call them first before you just show up at the airport with your Maxjet scrip.
Also: if you haven’t started your travels yet, you may not be able to simply swap carriers. Getting a refund — if possible — may be the better option. Notify your credit card company and let them know. If you bought through a travel agent, call them ASAP.
Maxjet’s homepage has an apology and some instructions, too.
For those left with this conundrum, my condolences, and best wishes for finding a way home, or wherever Maxjet was going to take you. Feel free to report back with tales of how you got there and back.
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December 24th, 2007 at 6:03 pm |
We did a great story about this airline for eCityofTravel.com and photographer David Lewis Taylor took fabulous photos. We did hope they could make it……. I hate to see this happen to any airline.
Ken Panton
Pres.
eCityofTravel.com
December 25th, 2007 at 4:28 pm |
There goes my annual New Year’s Eve in London. Sigh.
December 27th, 2007 at 2:28 pm |
Silverjet will honor Maxjet pricing if you email them your Maxjet confirmation papers.
Now I get to try them out for a round trip price of $1250 incl. taxes.
Let’s see how good Silverjet really is.
December 27th, 2007 at 3:08 pm |
Silverjet is a great airline and it is more of an airline for the Jet-Set. I know a few folks that has been on Silverjet and all them have had a FABULOUS experience…..
Ken Panton
Pres.
eCityofTravel
eCityofStyle
eCityofAutos
December 29th, 2007 at 4:04 pm |
The good news is something will inevitably fill its place. The free market suffers no void gladly. My guess is it will be more on the lines of L’Avion and Silverjet, which is to say swankier than MaxJet and more affordable than Eos. MJ’s Achilles heel was that they couldn’t lock onto a target demographic solid enough. As Mark said, the planes didn’t have in-seat chargers for laptops, alienating business travelers, and people simply going on vacation aren’t savvy enough to know about MaxJet.
December 29th, 2007 at 10:31 pm |
I had a feeling Maxjet would fail. I think this will be a 2008 trend with the high jet fuel prices.
January 1st, 2008 at 4:58 pm |
I was sitting in the luton silverjet lounge chatting with another former maxjet passenger and was told that one of the issues for maxjet was that newly ordered aircraft had not been delivered on time, therefore with the old equipment breaking down and maxjet paying extra to put passengers on eos, they were bound to bleed cash
April 27th, 2008 at 9:43 pm |
[…] down abruptly today. Their homepage contains the now all-too-familiar declaration, as seen in the Maxjet and Skybus shutdowns, that future flights are […]