London, November 18: Comtel Air, which runs chartered flights on the lucrative Birmingham-Amritsar sector has cancelled more flights until November 20. This happens after most NRI passengers travelling by Comtel Air from Amritsar to Birmingham via Vienna, were forced to cough up 20,000 pounds over the weekend when the airline could not afford to meet the fuel and other costs of the second leg of the journey.
The four more flights cancelled on the route are: the COE732 Birmingham-Amritsar at 4.15 pm on November 18; COE702C Amritsar-Birmingham at 4:30 am and COE732 Birmingham-Amritsar at 6.15 pm — both on on November 19; and COE702C Amritsar-Birmingham at 5.30 am local time on November 20. Keith Vaz, senior Labour MP, called for intervention by the David Cameron government, and said it was “outrageous that consumers who in good faith purchase tickets are left stranded for days and then asked to pay additional money these actions can only be said to amount to air piracy”. He said he had asked the Transport Minister to intervene immediately to help the British citizens. Bhupinder Kandra, Comtel majority shareholder, said money paid to travel agents had not been passed on to the airline, which led to the situation at Vienna airport. The Birmingham-Amritsar section is a popular one due to the large population of Punjabi-origin living in Birmingham and other towns of the West Midlands. The passengers who managed to pay extra money at Vienna and returned to Birmingham tried to contact the travel agent who sold them the tickets, for a refund, but no one was available. It is uncertain if the extra money paid at Vienna would be refunded.