31/7 Tass 54
KRASNOYARSK, July 31 (Itar-Tass) — The first 14 passengers of the Continent bankrupt air carrier on Sunday flew from Krasnoyarsk to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky by an airliner of the Yakutia company. On Tuesday, another 19 passengers are to be dispatched to Norilsk by a Nordstar flight. Forty-three remaining passengers that were stranded at Krasnoyarsk airport, have been accommodated in a hotel and provided with food. Some people have given up the idea of flying and returned to the city, the airport’s press secretary Tatyana Kaminskaya told Itar-Tass on Sunday.
However, she said, the situation is complicated by the fact that new passengers have arrived in the morning for next flights of Continent. So the situation of the past day is recurring. An operational headquarters has been set up for its solution on instruction of the territory’s governor Lev Kuznetsov. The regional Minister of Industry and Energy Denis Pashkov heads the headquarters.
According to the territorial branch of the RF Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya) a decision has been taken at the federal level to compensate for the cost of tickets to the airlines that will transport passengers of the Continent air carrier to their residence places. At the same time those passengers who have purchased Continent’s tickets for flying to holiday places, will have to recover through courts the damages incurred in connection with the purchase of Continent airline’s tickets.
Last Friday, Continent declared its bankruptcy, after which the company’s Air Operator Certificate was revoked. “This is due to the termination of refuelling of aircraft of Continent at Russian airports because of the lack of funding,” Rosaviatsiya told Itar-Tass. As of July 29, the air carrier’s debt to airports stood at 32 million rubles.