Kiwijet on way to being operational carrier

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MEDIA RELEASE

March 03, 2008 Christchurch, New Zealand: The Kiwijet Airline Company Limited is on its way to becoming an operational air carrier. We have begun the process of recruitment and development of our technical manual system.

The manual system needs to be completed prior to filing for the airline’s AOC (Air Operators Certificate) with NZCAA (New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority) which should occur around July 2008. These manuals consist of the aircraft operating manual, engineering manual and other required manuals before Kiwijet can get its wings.

On the recruitment side we have selected the airline’s core directors; however a severe pilot shortage has forced us to look for pilots in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Canada and the USA that are already qualified on either the British Aerospace 146-200 or The RJ-100. We plan to have a launch total of four cockpit crews per aircraft or 32 pilots.

Other issues we are dealing with at the moment is the spike of the cost of oil currently standing at US $103.76 per barrel which closed on Friday 28-02-08. We are watching what if any new pricing guidelines will come out of the 148th OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) meeting in Vienna on March 5th 2008. Our due diligence indicated that the price of oil would need to be below US $100.00 per barrel for Kiwijet to have a chance of success. We are closely watching these events, although we believe that the price will stabilize below the US $ 100.00 mark before July this year.

The due diligence also indicated that we will need a partner airline to feed the domestic regional markets. That process is still in negotiations with an Australian carrier, and we should have a joint announcement around April 01, 2008 of which airline it is, and the scope of the agreement as well a guest loyalty programme.

Chief Executive Officer Patrick Weil, and our Director of Engineering as well as directors of the Commercial Aircraft Group LLC are enroute to the United Kingdom to check on the progress of the aircraft and sign the lease agreements which consist of initially a (Dry Lease) for the first two years of a five year lease term, and then convert the leases to an (Operational Lease) agreement. In layman terms this means that the aircraft will be placed with an Australian operator until Kiwijet receives its own (AOC) from the NZCAA which in some cases can take up to two years. This arrangement will allow Kiwijet to operate and generate revenue while we go through the process of certifying the airline.

Our principal investor group The Trustee Group N.V. is committed to the project as long as certain conditions are met, and the global economic downturn stabilizes especially with regard to the US Dollar. Our biggest concern is that the US Dollar will reach Parity with the Australian Dollar in the next few months which could cause an issue with funding.
Funding for Kiwijet will be broken into five equal amounts of US $7.000.000 for a total of US $35.000.000 starting in April.

We feel that progress is moving pretty much on schedule as long as economic conditions stabilize. We should begin taking reservations and publish fares and a flight schedule late this year if all goes as planned.

We will release media information and details regarding our Australian partner on April 01, 2008

Persons interested in employment opportunities please forward your CV to kiwijet[at]bellsouth.net or post to

ENDS

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