New Zealand entities of Airwork Holdings Limited, trading as Airwork Group, were placed into receivership "following a shareholder breach of the group's banking facilities," related to the looming default on its loans from a consortium of Australian and New Zealand banks. Receivers said the company would continue to trade as it seeks new investors.

Brendon Gibson, Daniel Stoneman, and Neale Jackson of Calibre Partners were appointed as receivers of the company. Their first report on the progress of the receivership is due on September 9, 2025.

"This step has been taken to facilitate a structured process to identify a new owner for the business. The trading performance of the business underpins the strategy to continue to trade with the support of the financiers, customers, and key suppliers with a view of immediately commencing a going-concern sale process for the New Zealand and Australian businesses and assets," one of the receivers, Gibson, said.

The receivership covers Airwork Holdings Limited, Contract Aviation Industries Limited, AFO Aircraft (NZ) Limited, Airwork Fixed Wing Limited, and the group's only certified air operator, Airwork Flight Operations Limited. However, the Australian and Irish entities of the group, including its in-house lessor SPV Airwork Ireland Limited, are not affected and continue to trade normally. The group does not have an Australian AOC.

An USD83.5 million loan originally expired in July 2024, but Airwork negotiated a one-year extension of the deadline. It said earlier this year that it was unlikely to secure another extension, and that the failure to repay by the July 31 deadline would cast "major doubts about Airwork's ability to continue operations in the future." The loan, which was taken out in 2019, had all of Airwork's assets pledged as collateral.

The New Zealand corporate register shows that Airwork Holdings is wholly owned by China's Zhejiang Rifa Precision Machinery. All other entities in receivership in New Zealand are wholly owned by Airwork Holdings, except for Airwork Flight Operations, which is owned by a public trust with undisclosed shareholders. New Zealand law caps foreign ownership of certified air operators at 49%.

Logistics firm Freightways, which is a 50/50 joint venture partner with Airwork Group in Parcelair, said it was "monitoring" the situation and had "a contingency plan which can be implemented on short notice and with minimal operational impact" should Airwork go out of business.

The New Zealand cargo group currently operates eleven B737-400(SF)s and one B737-300(SF), although only six -400(SF)s are currently active. The holding also owns additional B737s and B757s leased to other airlines. It has been trying to offload some assets in recent months to raise cash, with mixed results.

The operator was hit by the loss of five B757-200(PCF)s leased to Russia's Aviastar-TU, which retained them after New Zealand imposed sanctions on Russia in March 2022. Airwork Group is currently suing insurers for compensation over those aircraft. In another major blow, Airwork recently lost one of its main customers, Team Global Express (TFX), which transferred its charter contract to rival Texel Air Australasia (TT, Auckland International) in 2024. The customer accounted for about a quarter of Airwork's revenues at that time.