Jetpacks ready to fly Adventure company wants in
GOLD Coast jetpack operator Greg Weige wants to ‘own’ Pelican Beach once again after the business that won the council licence stopped operating.
Jetovator won the contract in 2017 with a $140,000 offer to the council for exclusive rights to operate flyboards at Pelican Beach.
A year later, Jetovator is gone and the council is looking for a new business.
This comes after the Bulletin revealed AquaSplash water park owner Matt Devine would pursue legal action against the council after he lost the tender to operate at Southport Broadwater Park.
Now the council will be forced to look for a new operator of jetpacks across the water at Pelican Beach.
“The operator appointed under permit to operate at this location advised the City in February 2018 of their intention to surrender tenure over this location,” a council spokesperson said.
“City officers are currently reviewing the processes involved to ensure a suitable operator can be appointed to the location at the earliest opportunity.”
Mr Weige, the Jetpack Adventures national operations manager, said the council’s tender process needed to be improved if the best operators were to provide dependable good times for tourists.
He said his company had the first jetpack in the southern hemisphere in 2011 and a year later started on the Gold Coast.
Then it operated at Budds Beach until an issue over noise forced all jetpacks to Pelican Beach near Sea World in mid-2014.
“We were on month-bymonth leases with the council and they didn’t invite us to tender for the contract,” he said. “It would have been nice after operating on the Gold Coast for five years to have been invited.”
The council did publicly notify the tender and called for expressions of interest for the contract to operate jetpacks at Pelican Beach. The tender opened on November 26, 2016 and closed on December 20. Jetovator did not return the Bulletin’s calls.