Angel venture takes flight

TORY MP Tony Baldry is climbing aboard the aviation bandwagon. Baldry, MP for Banbury, is among four investors who have set up Angel Gate Aviation, which today took control of insolvent French charter carrier Euralair Horizons and its sister business aviation company Euralair International.

Angel Gate, chaired by Baldry, has provided a e4m (£2.8m) bond to a tribunal appointed to find a buyer for the companies, based at Paris Le Bourget Airport. It has also agreed to pay e100,000 for each company.

Euralair Horizons has contracts with French travel companies FRAM and Go Voyages, part of the Accor hotels group.

The aim is to combine operations with Egypt's Midwest Airlines, owned by the French-Egyptian Lakah family. Baldry's co-investors are Raymond and Michel Lakah, directors of Lakah Group of Egypt, and French businessman Patrick Arama. French authorities have provisionally approved the deal.

'What we are buying is a pair of businesses where we can improve efficiency by combining operations with Midwest,' said Baldry.