Hong Kong  - The Hong Kong High Court on Wednesday granted an order to wind-up budget airline Oasis which collapsed in April.

This comes just five days after the Air Transport Licensing Authority announced the airline has lost its 13 route licenses.

An application to wind-up the carrier's sister company Oasis Growth and Income Investment Limited was also approved.

The airline collapsed in April leaving 700 staff without jobs and more than 30,000 passengers holding tickets valued at 300 million Hong Kong dollars (38.5 million US dollars).

The provisional liquidator for Oasis Edward Middleton said the job was now to identify assets to convert into cash and distribute among the creditors.

"The full liquidation process will take two to three years, it may be longer it just depending on the claims out there and what litigation we might have to get involved with." he said.

"I don't know when creditors will get any of their money back and at this stage I can't give a sensible estimate of how much that might be.

"We will endeavour to make returns to creditors even if it is on an interim basis as soon as we can, but that is said without making any guarantees or promises."

Initially, airlines bosses said they "very confident" someone would come forward to take over the airline and save the jobs of its staff.

However, the airline's huge losses and debts to creditors along with the uncertain outlook because of high fuel prices appeared to have put off any potential saviours.

Oasis caused a sensation in Hong Kong's aviation industry when it began operating two Boeing 747 planes in October 2006, flying between Hong Kong and London with one way fares for as little as 128 US dollars.

Within a year, it had five 747s in operation and boasted that in its first year it flew 250,000 passengers between London and Hong Kong. It began flights to Vancouver last June. (dpa)