"Some of the students from the Middle East were on time lines for employment back home and we couldn't honour the [training] commitment. They only got halfway through their instrument ratings," he said.
"Even on days when they got up in the air, clouds were hemmed in around the Kaimais and they couldn't get away on the cross-country flights. That didn't help us."
Mr Rowe said it was such a shame to close the operation.
"We had students lined up ready to come from the Middle East and India. All the right signs were there, but for various reasons I decided to put it into liquidation."
The shareholders, Mr Rowe and his wife, Sandra, declined to put in any more capital, and running it remotely from Palmerston North didn't help.
"But that wasn't the main reason. There was something in behind the scenes that I don't want to talk about. I was personally gutted, and when things outside your control occur you have to move on," Mr Rowe said.
The liquidator from RHB Chartered Accountants has met Bay Flight staff (there are 16 instructors) and students in the past week, telling them a sale process was under way. The new owner needs to be NZQA accredited and registered.
RHB director Tom Rodewald said he hoped to have a conditional contract in the next day or so and settlement next week.
"The students prefer to stay in Tauranga and, fingers crossed, we can have a good resolution," he said.
The visiting students pay about $70,000 for the 15-month flying course and spend another $20,000 on accommodation, food and hospitality, adding more than $3million to the Tauranga economy.
Mr Rowe, who bought the business at Tauranga Airport 18 months ago, invested up to $1.5million. He doubled the number of students, expanded into an adjacent hangar, built two new classrooms and added a $140,000 United States-made Redbird flight simulator. Mr Rowe bought a $700,000 four-seater, twin-engine Tecnam from Italy, complete with a glass cockpit and the latest digital instrumentation - the only one of its type in the country.
He also upgraded his 11-strong fleet by buying new engines from the US.
Bay Flight, which was established by Phil Hooker in 1996, became the only training centre in Tauranga after Euro Flight International closed and Air Discovery retrenched back to Auckland early last year.