Oasis Hong Kong Airlines - History

History

Oasis Hong Kong Airlines was founded by Rev. Raymond C. Lee, and his wife, Priscilla H. Lee in February 2005. The chief executive, Steve Miller, was founder and first chief executive of another Hong Kong-based airline, Dragonair. Its inaugural route to London commenced service on October 26, 2006, The first flight, flight O8 700, took off from Hong Kong International Airport after a 24-hour delay. The airline had been scheduled to begin operations on October 25, but Russia revoked the London-bound flight's fly-over rights at 12:09 PM, one hour before the flight's scheduled departure.

Oasis originally operated as a low-fare airline, and claimed that it had already broken-even after the first six months of operations. The airline said that this was achieved through flying long-haul so as to decrease maintenance and fuel costs. It also has a lower cost per passenger-kilometer compared to other airlines in Hong Kong. Business passengers, and those who used to have to transfer en-route to get to London, would be Oasis' main sources of revenue. Like many other airlines, Oasis planned to hedge a proportion of its fuel purchases to guard against future fuel price increases.

Oasis's subsequent liquidation proved the airline's unviability in practice. In an attempt to be competitive, the airline offered lower than sustainable fares leading to rapidly accumulating losses. Oasis also faced stiff competition by a number of well established carriers operating on its Hong Kong-London route including Cathay Pacific, British Airways, Qantas, Air New Zealand and Virgin Atlantic, and by the fact that its competitors flew into the more convenient and centrally located Heathrow while Oasis was consigned to Gatwick.

Oasis Hong Kong Airlines was liquidated on 9 April 2008. The last flight, flight O8 901, departed from Vancouver at 10:15 am and arrived at Hong Kong at 3:09pm. The liquidator KPMG China announced the liquidation at 2pm on that day and over the following few days it would conduct a search for potential buyers for the airline.

In 8 July 2008, it was announced that unsecured creditors of collapsed Oasis Hong Kong Airlines, including ticket holders, will eventually receive no more than 10 percent of what they are owed, according to the airline's provisional liquidator, KPMG.

In 16 September 2008, this estimate was reduced to 'less than 5%'. No timetable was given for distribution of these funds.