Dubbo Regional Council and JetGo need to come to an agreement for the benefit of the city, says the Dubbo Chamber of Commerce.
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Council has lodged paperwork to dissolve the airline, which operates routes out of the city’s airport that fly to Brisbane and Melbourne.
On Friday afternoon, Matthews Folbigg Lawyers released a detailed statement outlining a debt of more than $270,000 owed to council, the result of a dispute over the calculation of passenger taxes.
A hearing has been set for next month in the Supreme Court of NSW, however, Chamber president Matt Wright said he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
“I guess we want to just really emphasis that we want both of these parties to come to an agreement as soon as possible to resolve this issue. It was a difficult thing to negotiate in the first place (getting JetGo here) and to lose it really is a backwards step for the city,” Mr Wright said.
“If we lose it we wonder what sort of position that puts us in when it comes to negotiating with other airlines if they can see that we’ve forced another airline out. Irrespective of what has happened it’s that perception. We really hope that if council does continue down this route that they’ve got a plan b.”
Having flights to Brisbane and Melbourne were “a couple of feathers in [Dubbo’s] hat”, Mr Wright said.
“I’d ask the council to pretty quickly fill that gap if a gap is created. But we hope that’s not the case. We hope both parties come to an agreement and those centres continue to be serviced,” he said.
Mr Wright said he was aware it was a legal matter and he wasn’t privy to all of the information on the matter.