The McEvaddy brothers’ Omega Air business has always had that extra buzz about it, given that it sells in-flight refuelling services to the US military.
Using two converted 707s and a converted DC10, the website of Omega Aerial Refuelling Services Inc says it is the only company in the world providing commercial fee-for-service in-flight refuelling services.
Having started with sales to US Navy and Marine Corps aircraft, it has expanded to sell to the Royal Australian Air Force, the British Royal Air Force and the Canadian Air Force.
Over the past 12 years, Omega has flown “more than 4,000 missions” and deployed to some of the more exotic destinations of the US Navy and Marine tactical aircraft, according to its website.
Many of its key management are former navy aviators and know "what it is like to be 'haze grey and under way'," according to the website, with the grey being a reference to the colour used for US naval warships to make them hazier and harder to spot when on the horizon at sea. All of which is a long way from the Vista Primary Care Campus in Naas, Co Kildare, but not when viewed in terms of the €10 million loan an Irish Omega business forwarded to that project,
and which it now fears it may not see repaid.
The group restructuring that took place in 2011 has apparently resulted in a decision that Dublin company Omega Aviation Services Ltd should publish consolidated accounts, and the accounts just filed – the company had been listed for strike off – are bulkier ones than those filed previously and give a bit more information about the group than was previously available.
While the US Omega companies are not part of the group headed by the Dublin company, the accounts do disclose that Anglo Irish Bank has security over lease arrangements between the Dublin company and the one in the US. The debts involved were $10 million at the end of 2011, having been $25.8 million at the end of 2010.
The debt to Anglo was a combined one, involving Omega Air Inc, and an Isle of Man entity called Bacchus Aviation Inc. The latter is described in the accounts as an unrelated company. An Omega spokesman did not want to discuss who owned Bacchus.
