Dynamic International Airways has made significant progress in reducing its customer financial liabilities since filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, according to a status update Friday.
However, the High Point charter airline has cut its work force by nearly one-third and continues to face legal attempts to force it into liquidation.
Dynamic also reported it has a new chief executive in Ray Lawlor, who has more than 30 years of aviation industry experience. He also serves as senior vice president of cargo sales and marketing for Swift Air LLC.
The company has eliminated 60 of 192 jobs since filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection July 19. It has plans to add eight pilots and 22 flight attendants as part of expanding services through a new flight strategy that began Friday.
Dynamic reported trimming its customer liability debt from $7.98 million to $1.96 million as of Friday. It projects reducing the debt to $323,659 by mid-October.
At the time of the bankruptcy filing, Dynamic’s fleet featured six Boeing 767s serving routes that include New York and Ontario, Calif. International service is to Georgetown, Guyana; Guayaquil, Ecuador; Saipan in Northern Mariana Islands; and Changchun and Nanchang, China. The aircraft can carry 235 passengers using 21 lie-flat business-class seats and 214 economy-class seats.
The airline has ended the Ecuador service because of permitting issue with the Ecuadorian government. It is planning to reduce its service to Guyana from five flights weekly to just one beginning in early October.
Dynamic said its focus will be on an aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance strategy, known as ACMI, in which it gains business from a third-party vendor that sells flight tickets.
An ACMI carrier receives a flat rate per flight hour. Dynamic said it has agreed to one ACMI contract with Swift Travel Services for flights between Port Au Prince, Haiti, and Santiago, Chile. It is negotiating for a second such contract for flights from Miami to Havana and Santa Clara, Cuba.
Dynamic’s bare-bones filing came after Dynamic lost a legal fight in U.S. District Court for the Middle District.
PMC Aviation LLC of Greensboro is owed $1.19 million, representing an arbitration judgment reached in April that Dynamic disputes. Dynamic says its filing was prompted by recent arbitration judgments against the company that it is challenging under the International Commercial Arbitration Act.
PMC claims in its motion for liquidation that Dynamic “is suffering from millions of dollars of continuing losses. ... The debtor has been grossly mismanaged.”
Dynamic lists between 200 and 999 creditors, assets between $10 million and $50 million, and liabilities between $50 million and $100 million. The company projects funds will be available for distribution to unsecured creditors.
PMC’s motion is being opposed by unsecured creditor Worldwide Flight Services Inc. of Jamaica, N.Y., which is owed $123,773.
Dynamic’s largest unsecured creditor is Air India Inc. at $10.5 million from another arbitration award that Dynamic disputes. B.K.P. Enterprises & Expim International of Greensboro, was awarded a combined $3.49 million arbitration judgment in December that Dynamic also disputes.