Airlines
Last Dawn For Eos Airlines
Eos Airlines , the all business class transatlantic airline, has become the latest casualty of the credit crunch.
The "challenging economic and credit environment" forced the company to file a voluntary petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy," chief executive Jack Williams said in a statement late Saturday night.
The airline's flights between London's Stansted Airport and New York's Kennedy Airport Sunday will be its last.
The Purchase, N.Y.-based company intends to eliminate most of its work force.
The airline launched round-trip service for business travelers from New York to London in 2005. It was named after the Greek goddess of the dawn.
Last August, the young airline struggled to arrange a fourth round of financing before securing $50 million of additional equity from institutional and private capital, with one unnamed investor, thought to be from Dubai, said to account for 70% of the total.
U.S. venture outfits Golden Gate Capital, Sutter Hill Venture and Maveron had backed the company earlier.
Williams said that the airline was "working toward closing on an investment that would have carried us to corporate profitability in 2009 ... we were unable to close on the financing we needed. That leaves us with insufficient cash on hand to continue operations."
In December, MAXJet, a rival business class transatlantic airline, filed for bankruptcy protection and ceased operations on its routes between London and New York, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
MAXJet left passengers stranded on Christmas Eve and raised questions about the viability of smaller transatlantic carriers who are fighting rising fuel costs while trying to win market share from much bigger rivals.
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All-business transatlantic company  has filed for  bankruptcy protection. The United States based company ran flights between London  and New York's .

Eos, named after Greek , flew what will likely be its last service on Sunday. Founded in 2005, the airline had had difficulty in securing investment to keep it going, starting last year. Plans had been aiming for securing funding to keep the service running up until 2009, but this failed and the business has insufficient funds to continue.

Several other airlines have closed worldwide recently over difficult conditions in the industry, including all-business carriers like Eos. Last year the sudden collapse of  left passengers stranded on Christmas Eve. The company offered services connecting London with New York,  and . Eos had been considered by analysts as the most viable of the transatlantic all-business carriers.