Investor Group Calls Off Plan to Merge Airlines

SAN DIEGO — A deal that could have merged idled Imperial Airlines of Carlsbad with Pacific Coast Airlines in Santa Barbara has been called off because the investor group that was to coordinate the merger was apparently unable to arrange financing.

Meanwhile, in a strange twist to a series of business deals already shrouded in secrecy, Pacific Coast has been sold to a Los Angeles-based holding company, which immediately named Imperial Airlines President Henry Voss as its general manager.

Voss could not be reached for comment Wednesday. An employee at Imperial Airlines confirmed that Voss had submitted his resignation earlier this week.

Imperial’s commuter flights from Carlsbad to San Diego, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Bakersfield and Orange County were suspended on Jan. 10 after the purchase of at least 70% of its stock by a Kansas City group called United Imperial.

The identities of the members of that group remain undisclosed.

Fifty-one percent of Pacific Coast’s stock, meanwhile, has been purchased by Merchant Airways, a Los Angeles-based holding company that has been “doing analysis and investigation into the commuter airline industry for the past year,” according to Vice President Myrna Molnar, who added that her family owns controlling interest in Merchant Airways.

The purchase price was not disclosed, but Molnar said that Pacific Coast will continue to operate its 60 daily flights from Santa Barbara to San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, Bakersfield, Monterey, Fresno and Lake Tahoe.

Still uncertain is the fate of Imperial. The company has been in a tumble since the fall of 1984, when United Airlines removed the company from its “preferential treatment” reservation list.

As a result of that action, Imperial’s monthly passenger count dropped from nearly 30,000 in 1984 to fewer than 10,000 last month.