Hundreds of workers have officially been sacked from budget airline Bonza as administrators struggle to find a buyer to bail out the grounded carrier.
Administrator Hall Chadwick told more than 300 staff in a meeting on Tuesday morning that their employment would be terminated.
Workers had been stood down since April, when the airline went into administration after its fleet of Boeing 737-8 planes were repossessed by lessors.
The company is yet to enter into liquidation after the Federal Court in May extended the deadline for Bonza to find a buyer until July 29.
Several parties had reportedly been interested in bailing out the cash-strapped airline, which went into administration with debts of about $110 million.
In a confidential meeting on June 6, Hall Chadwick set interested parties a deadline of the following day to submit a purchase proposal.
If the company was placed into liquidation, employees would be entitled to payments through the federal government’s fair entitlements guarantee scheme.
However, militating against the company going into liquidation is its possession of a valuable air operator’s licence, which is not transferable and would most likely be forfeited if the company went into liquidation.
Bonza operated as a low-cost domestic airline primarily servicing regional locations in Australia.
Creditors were told at their first meeting that the airline owed nearly $77 million across two loans, almost $16 million to trade creditors and another $10 million to landlords.
Other debts include more than $5 million owed in staff wages and annual leave entitlements and $3 million to government authorities such as the Australian Taxation Office.