While various entrepreneurs have tried to buy and resell the 28 Eclipse 500 very light jets that were flown by bankrupt air-taxi firm DayJet, none has succeeded. Now Randall Sanada, chairman of aircraft charter and management firm Jet-Alliance of Westlake Village, Calif., has proposed a new way to market those jets, still owned by UT Finance, a subsidiary of United Technologies.

 

Jet-Alliance plans to offer to sell shares of used DayJet Eclipse 500s to those who placed 60-percent deposits on new Eclipse 500s. “As unsecured creditors,” Sanada said, “there’s really nothing for them except perhaps a small percentage they might recover through litigation.

 

All is lost unless we can come up with an alternative. Depositors would pay part of their remaining 40 percent in exchange for a share of a DayJet Eclipse.

 

If a depositor paid 60 percent of the $2.15 million price, then by paying 50 percent of the remaining $860,000, he could buy a half share in a used Eclipse 500, although these are not formal Jet-Alliance pricing quotes. Jet-Alliance would manage the jet and place it on its Part 135 certificate to generate revenue.