Oasis Hong Kong Airlines' founder and former chairman expressed deep regret yesterday for its passengers, staff and commercial partners, and said several investors were still interested in acquiring the low-cost carrier.
The Reverend Raymond Lee Cho-min said: 'We are very sorry about the inconvenience caused. We are very sorry for our passengers and commercial partners, but we hope to turn grief into action and seek to continue Oasis' mission in the near future.'
He said it was his dream to allow the 7 million Hongkongers to travel around the world, and he had not given up on this.
He said several investors were still interested in buying Oasis and he hoped almost all the 700 former employees would be able to find jobs under the new investor.
Mr Lee insisted the operation model of the no-frills carrier was not the cause of its collapse and put its failure down to insufficient funding.
'It needs at least eight planes to achieve the full potential of this operation model,' he said. Oasis had only four airliners.
He also said keen price competition with other airlines had posed a great challenge.