Highly anticipated flights from Tucson to Guaymas/San Carlos, Sonora, have not materialized more than a year after they were announced, and some customers are mulling legal action for advanced travel vouchers that have not been refunded.
Six months ago, the owner of Paradise Air, which was coordinating the air service with a California carrier, told the Star the delay was due to adding code-sharing agreements with other U.S. airlines. Now, the Paradise Air office has closed and the staff has been laid off.
More than 20 people told the Star that they gave Paradise Air between $500 and $2,500 for travel vouchers and have been trying to get their money back for months.
Owner Frank Jackson said he accepts full responsibility for the situation, but said he did not swindle anyone.
He said the money from the vouchers was placed in the same account as the flight-guarantee money and he didn’t have access to it. Once his Canadian investors give him promised money, he can reimburse everyone, he said.
He sold $70,000 worth of vouchers.
“I’m not trying to shirk responsibility,” Jackson said. “I made two errors in judgment: doing the voucher program without having started the flights and putting the money in the same account as the flight-guarantee pot.”
On Friday, Jackson said his Canadian investors had come through with the funds and he was in the process of issuing refunds.
One woman confirmed that she had received a refund.
Meanwhile, the status of the flights is still in flux
“We haven’t heard anything at all that indicates that anything is progressing,” said David Hatfield, a Tucson International Airport spokesman. “It just never moved along.”
A company visited Tucson in the fall, on behalf of Paradise Air, but there’s been no communication since, he said.
“GET IN THE REFUND LINE”
Some customers who bought tickets feel they’ve been had, while others are still hopeful the flights will happen.
Adrian and Carolyn Skinner, of Castle Rock, Colorado, have a home in San Carlos and were looking forward to the convenience of the flights.
The couple bought eight vouchers for $2,000 from Paradise Air.
“Like others, we have been attempting to recover our funds for a couple of months,” the couple wrote via email. “We have been led on and promised funds would be wired into an account if we provided an account number and routing number. We did so.
“We even received an attachment, showing the request for a wire, but no confirmation of any such wire has followed, nor have any funds been deposited.”
Ron and Irene Igo, from Gillette, Wyoming, also bought eight tickets for $2,000 hoping to facilitate a visit from their children and grandchildren to their home in San Carlos.
“Working folks with budgets and limited vacation times are nearly prohibited from driving or flying down,” Ron Igo said. “We are still hoping for the service and have demanded nothing from Frank, as you can see, but maybe it’s time for us to get in the refund line as it is a lot of money to us.”
When Bob Sternfels heard about the flights last year, he figured the 18-hour round-trip drive from his home in San Carlos to Scottsdale for chemotherapy treatments would soon be a thing of the past.
He deposited $2,000 in a trust account that he was told would be applied toward ticket purchases at a discounted price.
“We were repeatedly assured by Frank that they would be flying ‘soon,’ however, the time for starting service came and went time after time,” Sternfels said.
“We requested a refund of our deposit (and) received numerous promises from Frank that our refunds will be sent to us, ‘Monday, then next Monday, then tomorrow.’
“He never denied that he was obligated to return them to us,” he said. “All he does now is give us excuse after excuse as to why he is not returning our funds.”
Assured that the flights would start in November, Joe Carnevale of Indianapolis bought $2,500 worth of travel vouchers and flew family members to Phoenix to catch the flight south.
The day before the flight, he received a message from Paradise Air that the flight would not be happening and that he should make other travel arrangements and would be reimbursed.
Carnevale ended up booking his family on another flight from Phoenix to Hermosillo, driving to San Carlos, then driving them back to Phoenix after the holidays to catch a flight home.
“We have made multiple attempts to recover the promised reimbursements along with trying to collect refunds on the vouchers we purchased, and all we have received is excuses,” Carnevale said.
San Carlos concert promoter Leslie Sahlen puts on music festivals on the beach and was one of many people awaiting the flights to begin in order to get visitors from Tucson to the events.
“The last official word from Paradise Air is that he expects to be in the air April 2017,” she said. “There are a lot of us here in San Carlos rooting for that to happen. It was heartbreaking when he did not get airborne in November.”
Working with the former Paradise Air staff, Sahlen got to work on a Plan B.
For her February music festival, guests from Tucson were booked on a flight to Hermosillo and then transported to San Carlos on a bus with complimentary margaritas and beer.
“The plane was almost full and a lot of folks drove down,” Sahlen said.
She and many of her neighbors continue to be hopeful that flights between Tucson and Guaymas will still happen .
Canadian visitor Cheryl Howell has spent five years wintering in San Carlos and was thrilled to hear about the flights. She bought two vouchers for $500.
Attempts to get her money back had been futile until this past week, when Jackson did reimburse her. Two others who had bought vouchers told the Star Friday afternoon that they had received partial refunds.
MOVING FORWARD
Jackson said the flights will still happen and that he wants to be involved with the airline.
“Obviously my reputation is tainted,” he said. “I’ll still be involved in it, but behind the scenes.
“The mess-up with the voucher program is on me. … I don’t know how you spin that.”
He said less than half of the people who bought vouchers have requested a refund.
“The rest still want to fly,” Jackson said.
Asked why he took the risk of selling vouchers before the flights started, he said it was his way to thank San Carlos regulars.
“When an airline opens, typical you give discounts for, say, a month,” Jackson said.
“My thinking was to give the discount to the people in San Carlos who had supported it. I never guessed that we wouldn’t fly in November.”
On Thursday, he said if the Canadian partners did not come through with the funds, he would close the flight-guarantee account and give everyone their money back and start from scratch.
On Friday, he said the partners had sent him the money and he had begun issuing refunds.
“Everyone will be paid back,” Jackson said. “And, eventually there’s going to be air service.”
