Al2 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, May 24, 2006 ny Box people _ - TON! LOJSTRUP peeks from her temporary cardboard "box home i in the-for- “mer7-11 location on Lakelse Ave. May 13. Lojstrup and other members of the - Terrace Pentecostal Assembly were raising money for the local youth shelter : . and to go toa Kamloops youth convention. SARAH ARTIS PHOTO | y patie QUEZADA ~~ HAWKAIR IS going to ask -> = Of. « bankruptcy © - protection, oo says its general manager. . shed and the amount it will - offer. won’t be known until __ it formally presents the plan “June 9.at-a supreme ‘court : Tom Beshr last week. “ Employees’ will .. _ changed to one that reflects Beshr said following a May - . 16 employee meeting here. ’ Hawkair went into ‘the. * creditor protection under the - Companies’ Creditors Ar-- -’" rangement Act’ (CCAA) last ” October. It provides significant nh flexibility. in devising a plan . ‘of compromisé ‘ “between debtor and creditors in the : » hopes of resolving the finan- _ cial problems of a distressed . company. ’ Hawkair’s' plan is for three years and the first part of it involves creditor ap-' proval, said Beshr. _ “The best we can offer creditors is to ask them to forgive a certain amount of debt in exchange for a cer- tain settlement amount, ” Be- shr said. - If those numbers are ap- proved by the judge, contin- ued Beshr, creditors would then vote on accepting the . proposal after a 30-day stay, ~ which would be early July. “Our expectation is the vote will be in our favour,” Beshr said. , | ‘Hawkair creditors clude both secured (own- -ers:of the company’s fleet) -_and unsecured (people who - provide day-to-day business services). +t its, creditors to forgive debt. ‘as part of a ‘plan to come out _ ” The exact amount of the. "debt: the company. wants to ° hearing in Vancouver, said a also. “. have. their pay... structure .. the company’s. Profitability, ae in- Tom Beshr schedules from Prince Ru- | "pert, Terrace, Kitimat, Fort’ -St. John and. Dawson Creek to Vancouver, was forced to. cut. its passenger numbers from 37 per flight to 32 due to new weight restrictions _ imposed by Transport Can- ada. ? “That’s huge,” said Beshr of the revenue loss caused by the restriction, which he estimates could cost the company $600,000 per year. Hawkair has negotiated the return of one of its three operating planes to creditor Field Aviation and Beshr said'the plan is to return the other two to creditor IMP Aviation. The company would then “new aircraft with more pow- er and-a stronger airframe ‘that will allow it to return to: . the 37-passenger maximum, said. Beshr. A second part of the busi- ~ : ness plan is to expand the. ‘). company’s service routes to -keep aircraft utilization up.. “When you have a multi- f= million dollar asset on the "ground it’s. not. a money maker,” continued Beshr. . The Terrace, Prince Ru- . “ pert and Peace River routes ‘ - are ‘saturated, . ‘and therefore ‘the company — is looking .to expand within | . B.C. and bordering Alberta and Alaska and Washington said Beshr - States. oS The’ revamped pay ‘struc- ture will affect all of the: “company’s 98 employees. ‘Employees will still get: a ‘base wage ‘Suitable for their position but increases will depend on_ the company’s, profit. Beshr says. the profit sharing model will award employees based on perfor- Mance and not just hours worked — a system used by WestJet. Jocelyn Lindenbach, Hawkair sales and market- ing coordinator, says she likes the idea of profit shar- ing. . “T think it’s an awesome idea,” be fulfilling to employees. Terrace Pusuic Lisrary Computer Las Offering free computer access and lessons she said, adding a’ . sense of. ownership should — seek’ to purchase or lease » . last week. “Wage costs will also. be curtailed by expanding ex- isting’ jobs to include new roles, Beshr added.. . Beshr’ says. Hawkair is an example of a smail com- * pany'that grew too quickly. In 2000, the company had 70-90 employees . when. it started flying commercially. By 2003, the company em-_— ployed 150. . .. The company’s “stock is now worth nothing and the whole reason behind* the CCAA, said Beshr, is to pull Hawkair “out of the ashes.” Hawkair cut service May 16 for the employee meet- ing and a small: hiccup in its automated answering. sys- - tem that put callers on hold indefinitely: without-alerting them of the one-day shut- down, resulted’in more. than ~ 200 voice messages. Beshr expressed his apol- 7 _Ogies to customers who ex- perienced the futile wait. ‘BCRRIME ll OTOPPE Rg. #635