‘Transglobal Airline CJSC abided and satisfied its liabilities under the contract with Mir Travel Company. Aircrafts ready to bring the passengers to Salzburg(Austria), Goa(India) and Bali(Indonesia) were ready for departure at Koltsovo airport. Yet Mir Travel Company did not pay for the flights timely: we only had the prepayment, not the full pay. That is why the decision to call them off was made,’ General Director of Transglobal Airline Mikhail Churkanov said to the agency’s representative.

According to Mr Churkanov, after January 20 the downtime costs of Transglobal airline will be summed up and a claim will be laid against Mir Travel Company. Transglobal is also going to return the prepayment to Mir, so this travel company is to be fully responsible for refunding and compensating its clients.

‘According to our contract with Mir, we are not in charge of default from obligations of the travel company. The travel company is fixed with all the relevant costs. It is also worth noting that the airline does not accomplish any flights on credit,’ Mr Churkanov said.

The whole incident is a follow-up on Mir Travel Company consolidating winter holidays chartered flights from Yekaterinburg to Antalia, Abu Dhabi, Salzburg, Goa and Bali and then announcing withdrawal of some of them. On January 2, for instance, a Ukrainian-Mediterranean Airlines aircraft was to leave Koltsovo airport for Salzburg at 8:30 AM However, just before the scheduled departure time, the passengers were informed that the aircraft take-off was delayed till the afternoon, and, on top of it, later the company cancelled the flight altogether. To make matters worse, Mir also called off the 8:50 AM flight to Goa (via Tashkent) and the 10 PM flight to Bali, both of which had been scheduled for January 4. However, it was not until January 5 that the cancellations were announced.