While not the largest amount owed to one of eight regional councils, mayor Greg Conkey said that the council, as an unsecured creditor, may “have to write the debt off”.

The release of the figure comes after the airline’s administrators sent a report to creditors on June 27, showing debt of more than $38.7 million.

Cr Conkey said the debt owed was not released initially because “we did have the expectation that they would be paying”.

“However, that expectation has now changed.”

“We did chase them and they paid an amount six months ago. However, this is an outstanding amount that has accrued since then,” Cr Conkey said.

The amount owed is mainly for landing charges.

“I’m disappointed for the people of Wagga who have lost money on their pre-purchased airline tickets,” Cr Conkey said.

Meanwhile Strategic Aviation Solutions chairman Neil Hansford, who has worked in the industry for 35 years, said he believed the council was more interested in the political benefits of the direct services than getting money from the airline.

“In this great council ego trip in trying to providing new routes, no one really considered the chances of it working,” Mr Hansford said.

“These once-a-day services don’t do much for a place – it’s of no interest to government or business passengers, which are the nucleus for a regional city like Wagga.”

He said the debts owed to individuals and councils were “crazy numbers”.

“Wagga Council, like all other councils involved, should’ve done more to understand the commercial impacts,” he said.

However, Cr Conkey dismissed the claim that the council was interested in only political benefits.

“Political benefit is not an aspect that played any role in our dealings with JetGo,” he said.

“It is also not true to say that we were not pursuing the recovery of unpaid fees. Council was pursuing the payment of fees while at the same time endeavouring to achieve an outcome that continued the service used by our community.”

Cr Conkey said that the route between Wagga and Brisbane was one of their strongest routes, averaging 1300–1500 passengers per month.

“We haven’t heard from anyone at this stage but because of those strong figures we believe others would be interested in taking up that service,” he said.

Mr Hansford said that if the mayor were adamant that the Wagga–Brisbane route had strong numbers, the council should consider underwriting REX or Qantas for that route.

In response, Cr Conkey said it was not the council’s role to underwrite private businesses.

“Councils role is to facilitate and support businesses that seek to establish operations in our region for the benefit of the community,” he said.

Moving forward, Cr Conkey said that no new lessons were gained from the JetGo experience, saying that airlines and many businesses fail from time to time.

“That doesn’t mean that council withholds support for new and establishing ventures in our area.

“In the case of JetGo, they offered a valued service to 1500–1700 members of our community every month. That is something the council should encourage. 

“When JetGo started falling behind on the payment of fees, we contacted them and made arrangements for payments and these arrangements were being following prior to the ultimate failure of the company.

“The JetGo experience does not provide a basis to change this approach,” he said.

While disappointing, Cr Conkey said he was satisfied that the council did “all in its power to support the airline and at the same time attempt to recoup the outstanding fees”.