Link between online travel booking outfit Bestjet and one of Australia’s worst airline collapses

THERE’S an intriguing link between the Brisbane online travel booking outfit which crashed this week and one of Australia’s worst airline collapses. At the centre is a woman named Rachel James.

THERE’S an intriguing link between the Brisbane online travel booking outfit which crashed this week and one of Australia’s worst airline collapses.

Rachel James launched her Bestjet business six years ago in a bid to take on Webjet, Expedia, Wotif.com and other players in the budget airfare space.

The Fortitude Valley-based enterprise appeared to be doing well as late as 2016, with a reported pre-tax profit of more than $900,000 and total transactions valued at more than $230 million.

But James quietly sold the business last month to a bloke named Robert McVicker, who spent just six weeks running the show before appointing administrators because he said “representations made to the company failed to materialise’’.

So who is Rachel James? It turns out that she’s the spouse of disgraced Brisbane-based aviation player Michael James, whose carrier Air Australia went spectacularly bust in 2012 owing nearly $100 million to creditors.

More than $36 million of that amount was owed to dudded ticketholders and 4000 passengers were left stranded when flights were suddenly grounded without warning.

The disaster was so egregious that ASIC banned Michael James from managing corporations for three years through 2016.

But that didn’t stop him from working as a “commercial manager’’ at Bestjet, which his wife registered as a business less than two weeks after Air Australia went belly up.

Throughout its relatively brief corporate life, Bestjet was beset with chronic consumer complaints posted on travel websites. The company denied allegations that it misled clients by cancelling reservations then seeking more money to rebook.

In case that wasn’t enough, Bestjet also had a long-running dispute with the Australian Federation of Travel Agents, which terminated the firm’s accreditation after it failed to prove that Michael James played no part in operations.

City Beat had hoped to learn yesterday how much Bestjet owes to creditors but administrators Nigel Markey and Brad Hellen from aptly-named Pilot Partners didn’t respond to our multiple requests for comment.

Neither McVicker nor Rachel James could be contacted.

As for Michael James, he did not return a call. Corporate records show he is now the sole director of an entity called U.S. Customs Pty Ltd, which he registered in January.

We have no idea what this outfit does but we know who owns it. That’s right, Rachel James.

DEATH AND TAXES

THE oldest laneway in Brisbane is about get a bit of TLC from one of the city’s more astute bar operators.

Hospitality whiz Martin Lange hopes to open his fourth watering hole by late February in Burnett Lane, which dates from 1824 and has already made a name for itself in the CBD as a hotspot for drinks and dining.

Lange has dreamt up the memorable name “Death and Taxes’’ for his latest venture and it will have much in common with his other award-winning venues, Cobbler, Savile Row and Finney Isles.

Like those joints, “Death and Taxes” will have no signage alerting patrons to the heritage-listed space inside, which is at least 100 years old.

Martin Lange posing at his Savile Row bar. Picture: AAP Image/Josh Woning

Lange told us yesterday that he’ll be installing a back bar to hold about 800 bottles of spirits, which has become a staple feature in all his venues.

The cocktail bar will have a capacity of just 100 patrons, who will be able to source a feed from a new tapas eatery expected to open next door.

Joining him in the project is Blake Ward, a one-time business partner who used to own the now-defunct Sling Bar with Lange in the West End.