The charter airline that last month was accused of forcing passengers to chip in to buy fuel in order to complete their journey from India to the UK has filed for bankruptcy.
Austrian-registered Comtel-Air, majority-owned by Indian businessman Bhupinder Kandra, has debts of 1.2 million euros, the Austrian creditors’ protection agency KSV said.
More than 180 passengers on a chartered Comtel Air flight from Amritsar in north India to Birmingham were stranded on the tarmac in Vienna during a refuelling stop after being told the airline “ran out of cash to fund the last leg of the trip”.
Passengers said the airline threatened to remove their luggage from the plane if they did not pay up.
The passengers, who refused to get off the plane in a six-hour stand-off, were finally escorted by police to ATMs to draw money.
The airline denied passengers were asked to pay for the fuel, but in a video filmed by a passenger on board they can be heard getting told “if you want to get to Birmingham, you have to pay”.
Source: The Age
