ABOUT 300 jobs were safeguarded yesterday when regional airline Gill Airways came out of administration.

A management buy-out has secured the future for the Newcastle company, which has been in administration since February last year.

The airline flies from Newcastle to Aberdeen, Dublin, Belfast, Stansted, Jersey and Guernsey. It also has routes from Norwich to Aberdeen, Jersey and Guernsey.

It operates a Newcastle-to-Paris route for Air France as well as operating from Paris to Gothenburg and Helsinki services on behalf of the airline.

The buy-out has been led by the chief executive, Malcolm Naylor, and backed by a near-£4m long-term investment from Bank of Scotland through a new holding company.

Since going into administration at the request of directors, Gill's employee numbers have dipped from 500 to 300, while the aircraft fleet has halved to nine.

But the passenger levels have risen, with the new Dublin route doing particularly well.

Mr Naylor said: "Thanks to the support of our customers and the travel trade we are now strong enough both to protect our business from other carriers and to develop new markets."