of Jetsgo at
Toronto Pearson International Airport’s Terminal 3 in September 2004. Jetsgo was launched on June 12, 2002, and ceased operations on March 11, 2005. The airline was Canada's third-largest airline at the time, controlling up to 10% of the domestic market. Expert analysts widely blame the airline for poor management. Founder
Michel Leblanc had previously founded
Royal Aviation, which he later sold to
Canada 3000. On March 11, 2005, Jetsgo abruptly announced that it had ceased operations. The action stranded thousands of passengers in airports and at their travel destinations with no way home, the defunct airline having made no arrangements with other carriers to handle their passengers. This occurred on the Friday morning before the March Break holiday season, one of the busiest air travel days in 8 of 10 provinces. 1200 employees lost their jobs. Jetsgo had accumulated $55 million in debt in the last eight months before it closed. Employees were finally paid for the time prior to the airline's shutdown on March 14, 2005. Passengers who had purchased Jetsgo tickets were forced to apply for refunds through their credit card companies or travel agencies.
Air Canada and
WestJet ran additional flights to bring the stranded passengers home. Because of its abrupt shutdown, the Jetsgo name was frequently corrupted to "Jetsgone" in some media reports. Passenger Satoshi Takano also used this term for a website which he created for former employees. It operated under that name for some time after the company's demise. In February 2007 the media reported that the
United States military was using the former
call sign assigned to Jetsgo during flights over
European Union (EU) territory.
The Sunday Times said that the call sign had been used by military flights involving so-called "
extraordinary rendition" of political detainees to
black site destinations. ==Staff==