I don't think the fact that they had advertisements out there looking for clients can be used to show that there were clients to be had, and actual demand for a MRO. In fact there were other bands of consultants out there attempting to set up MROs at the same time. Also, there was buzz about the hangar, yes, but some of those voices were saying it looks crazy to me.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/05/31/millard-aviation-business-in-decline-long-before-tim-bosma-murder-suspect-started-to-dismantle-it/
The Region of Waterloo kicks in $6M a year to keep the airport running because the airport is not self supporting. The number of flights running out out of YKF per year since 1997 from Stats Can, where green is good, a big number, and red is bad, a low number:
http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a47
You can see air traffic peaked with the stock market and internet 1.0 in that green patch. Now if there were to be another tech boom in Waterloo region maybe we would see air traffic like that again. Otherwise it is likely to be a long slow climb to regain those sort of numbers. The red patch of course refers to the recession that threw all the MRO guys out of work and on to the streets as consultants.
I don't think you are going to get an unbiased answer about the sales potential re: the MRO from the sales manager that failed to sign a deal. In sales, what other excuse is there, than if I just had more time?
And so DM's got crap in there...where is all CM's crap? I heard he had a shipload of it. I think what was inherited from CM, was likely a larger mass of junk, than what DM had. Say you have a 100 classic cars worth $10k each, that's $1M but you need 100 buyers to unload them to. The Toronto hangar situation sounded like Sanford & Son and no doubt they took it all with them to Waterloo.
The hangar was found fit for occupancy on Feb 23, 2012, but MillardAir did not get their Transport Canada certification for the MRO until Nov 1, 2012. It must have irked DM that the building was ready, but they were waiting on paperwork for 8 months.
But then hey, I have worked with the government, on one project all three project leads (this is democracy) on their end had multi-month psychiatric hospitalizations due to stress and we had to shut down May-Oct so that everyone could take their 3 month vacations, two years in a row. You never know how long it's going to take.
It looks like they were taking on additional staff as of September 2012 and at least one is still employed there.
Well the hangar was 125% of budget, $1.6M overspent, and since September there were staffed and paying for that, and I think DM saw that the hangar and MRO had sucked up all the cash, they were now paying out a full payroll, and AS had no one ready to sign anything.
It is only the former sales staff (AS, RK) that do not have Millardair on their resumes. All the other guys who worked there from Sept 2012 on, do.