A REGIONAL jobs quango has emerged as another casualty of the decision to scrap ambitious plans for direct flights from Kent to America.

SEEDA, the South East England Development Agency, has disclosed it expects to write off £100,000 ploughed into the ill-fated flights plan for a weekly charter service from Kent International Airport at Manston, east Kent to Virginia.

The quango’s loss means that as much as £250,000 of taxpayers’ money invested in the flights is likely to lost.

Airline operator Cosmos pulled the plug after only 800 tickets of the 10,000 tickets available were sold before the May launch date.

Kent County Council is expected to lose some £150,000 in what council chiefs have admitted was a “calculated risk.”

In a statement, SEEDA said it was disappointed at the decision to abort the flights.

“As part of SEEDA’s collaboration with KCC and our regeneration programme, £100,000 was allocated to provide some initial capital and to encourage stakeholders to support the project.

However, current trading conditions have proved difficult, leading to seat sales that did not reach a sustainable threshold.”

The statement added that SEEDA would continue to support regeneration projects in east Kent and that it believed Manston had not yet realised its commercial potential.

The quango also confirmed both it and KCC were involved in high-level discussions around an eleventh-hour rescue packages but it came to nothing because the financial risks were too considered too high.