‘Pay as you go’ operator pulls British flights

AN AIRLINE on which passengers claimed they were forced to pay for refuelling has cancelled this weekend’s services in and out of the UK.

The move by Austrian-registered Comtel Air comes as some UK passengers remain stranded abroad, while others are battling to get their money back after being “held to ransom” on the runway at Vienna airport earlier this week.

Only one of the two Comtel flights from the Indian city of Amritsar to Birmingham via Vienna took off last weekend.

With passengers stuck in Amritsar, those that did take off said they had to raise £20,000 to fund the rest of the trip. They were stuck in Vienna for six hours.

Yesterday, a Birmingham airport spokeswoman said Comtel had told the airport this weekend’s Birmingham-Amritsar return flights via Vienna had been cancelled.