Close shave for Manston

HangarChat Club Focus - TG Aviation/Thanet Flying Club

YOU'RE grounded with immediate effect and if you happen to be the owner of a successful flying school and engineering business, that kind of news comes as a bit of a sudden shock.

This is exactly what happened in July to Mark Girdler, Managing Director of TG Aviation, on the eastern boundary of the grandly named 'Kent International Airport' which the rest of know as Manston.

When PlaneStation, the airport owners and operators of budget airline EUjet, were refused an extension of their overdraft and a further ?20 million loan by the bank, airport operations ceased in the space of a single day, stranding thousands of passengers across Europe. While the media were focusing on the human tragedy, the matter of a huge outstanding airport insurance bill passed them by. Within a matter of hours of EUjet collapsing, TG Aviation discovered it was a casualty of collateral damage.

Mark explains: "The administrators were appointed on the same day and came to tell me they had a 'little problem' with the insurance and none of our aircraft could land! "Within about 20 minutes, they managed to sort it and confirm the insurance was still in place until the end of the week but the premiums hadn't been paid. The administrators could not offer the bank any reason why it should continue to pay the insurance, which was about ?340,000.

"The airfield buildings insurance had also lapsed and, to cut a long story short, we were told we had to cease fl ying immediately." Facing a crisis and desperate to keep his business and Thanet Flying Club in the air, Stearman enthusiast Mark had to work quickly to find a solution. He managed to persuade the aviation arm of the insurer to talk to the buildings division of the same company and agree on cover but only, they said, if he paid a year's very expensive premium in advance for his own airfield operators insurance.

Caught between a rock and a hard place, Mark had no option but to effectively cover the operational insurance of Manston until such a time as a new buyer for the airport could be found. He wrote a cheque large enough to place a strain on his business. Fortunately for Mark, with the arrival in September of Infratil Airports, as Manston's new owners, a fully operational airport insurance policy was once more put in place and Mark was able to claim a welcome refund from the insurance company.

For Mark Girdler and TG Aviation, having survived the crisis, it's now business as usual and his bright red Stearman is once again fl ying over the Kent coast. "One of the most amazing things," he says, "is the level of understanding and support we had from everybody at the time. "Many of the private owners had their aircraft annuals bought forward and strangely enough, because of all the publicity we received, we're a lot busier now and have learned the importance of diversification.

"It was a close shave but we didn't give up. It's a short and unsettling chapter in TG's long history that we can thankfully put behind us." It also means that one of Britain's oldest airports, Manston, established as long ago as 1915 and which played an important role in both world wars and the Cold War, has a civilian future. Let's hope it goes from strength to strength.

Words by Simon Moores