Remember when: Compass Airlines failed days before Christmas 1991 as the Soviet Union fell

A GOLD Coast man asked Australians to contribute as little as $2 each to a national fighting fund to rescue Compass Airlines.

Gold Coast History: Gold Coast Bulletin 1991, December 23. Front page.

Gold Coast Bulletin, Monday December 23, 1991

A GOLD Coast man asked Australians to contribute as little as $2 each to a national fighting fund to rescue Compass Airlines.

Mt Tamborine businessman Christian Puusep floated the idea of a trust fund to help the company in the “spirit of mateship”.

Mr Puusep, the company director of a landscaping business made his plea for Compass even though he said he had no connection with the airline, including having never flown on it.

“One $2 coin, one packet of cigarettes, a scratch-it ticket, a bag of lollies, one beer — it’s not a lot to pay,” he said.

His call coincided with the setting up of the Friends of Compass Fighting Fund in Melbourne by ex-Compass staff who had already pledge to work without pay in a bid to revive the airline.

Gold Coast Bulletin 1991, December 23. Front page.

The fund was to try and raise enough money to put the collapsed carrier back in the air.

Compass had been grounded three days earlier and never flew again.

It’s status was not resolved until a 1999 High Court hearing.

A second airline bearing the same name was launched in 1992 and also failed in 1993.

Meanwhile, speculation was rife that Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev would begin a new career as a roving world statement following his expected resignation.

The Soviet Union’s collapse was just two days away after leaders of 11 breakaway republics formally agreed to create a Commonwealth of Independent states.