IT’S a rags to riches success story but not everything high-flying entrepreneur Jack Romero touched turned to gold.

Mr Romero, who fled war-torn Beirut when he was 17 years old touching down in London with just £15 in his pocket, sold an airline for £30 million back in 2009.

His success story featured in the Daily Echo and on BBC One programme My Story earlier this week, with Jack describing how he turned his dream into a reality.

But in 1999 another airline adventure did not have the same profitable outcome his later endeavours produced.

Euroscot Express, which was based at Bournemouth Airport, folded with the loss of up to 30 jobs in 1999, two years after it began flying.

The multi-millionaire, who lives in Springbourne, was chief executive of the business, which flew from Bournemouth to Scotland.

Promising to offer “convenience, reliability, safety and comfort to travellers”, Euroscot eventually had flights to Glasgow and Edinburgh every day of the week.

But the arrival of other low-cost airlines including Ryanair forced the company to fold in 1999, leaving ambitions to expand into Europe unfulfilled.

Mr Romero said: “Euroscot was one of the first low-cost airlines but eventually we could not compete with Ryanair.

“Once the monopoly of the routes had been lost, the shareholders were reluctant to continue the venture.

“I wanted to expand to places like Holland and Spain but was unable to without backing.

“I started to look at linking with other operators but what the agreement needed was a bit more time and money and unfortunately the investors at the time could not see this.”

He added: “I feel really, really sorry about it and given a chance I would have got it going and linked it with other airlines.

“Ultimately it was a success for those years – we carried up to 65,000 passengers during our time.”