An unapologetic Bhupinder Kandra, the majority shareholder in the charter airline, confirmed Thursday its passengers will be paying for more than their drinks if travel agents don’t come up with the money Comtel is owed.

Angry passengers travelling from Amristar, India, to Britain found themselves stranded in Vienna where the plane was being refuelled. They were informed that they had to come up with £20,000 ($32,300 Cdn) if they wanted to get back to Birmingham.

“This money has to be paid back (to the passengers), but it will not be paid by me or by my company, Comtel Air,” Kandra told the BBC. He added that there was another stranded flight in Amristar where each passenger is being asked to cough up 10,000 Indian rupees (about $200 CDN) if they want to get back to Britain.

“This will be collected by my people there and then the passengers can come home,” Kandra said.

Passengers who booked the Comtel flights as part of a package would be protected by the Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing (Atol) scheme run by the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

What has happened with Comtel will open up old wounds for some 17,000 stranded Canadian passengers when the discount airline Jetsgo declared bankruptcy in March 2005. Travellers were told their return tickets were no good and to make other arrangements to get back home.

Some of the 180 Comtel passengers stuck at Vienna described their ordeal for Britain’s Channel 4 news.

Dalvinder Batra, from Oldbury, West Midlands, said: “It is absolutely disgusting. There are still people stuck out there.”

Company director Kamal Paul, 35, from Kettering, said he was one of a group of 10 travelling to the Punjab for a wedding. They were due to return on four different flights, but his was the only one that made it home.

“Our friends are still stuck in Amritsar. They are now starting to resort to other carriers to get home. I’ve spoken to one friend who has just paid £300 ($484 Cdn) for a BMI flight back to London.”

Ranbir Dehal, from Wolverhampton, said: “We were escorted to the cash point to take money out. They said there was a deficit of nearly 24,000 euros, and they gave us receipts.”

Reena Rindi, who was aboard with her 2-year-old daughter, said: “We wanted to go home. We’d been stranded for about three to four days. Who was going to take us home?”

She said passengers agreed to pay so they could fly to Birmingham. “We all got together, took our money out of purses – £130 ($210 Cdn). The children under 2 went free.”

What has happened with Comtel will open up old wounds for some 17,000 stranded Canadian passengers when the discount airline Jetsgo declared bankruptcy in March 2005. Travellers were told their return tickets were no good and to make other arrangements to get back home.

source: redflagdeals