Albanian national carrier will be seeking monetary compensation from Air Slovakia and wants a full investigation on why 110 passengers got stuck overnight in Bratislava, way off their Bologna destination.
TIRANA, Jan, 20 – Albania’s national airline is very unhappy with Air Slovakia over a snafu that saw 110 Albanian Airlines passengers flying to Bratislava and getting stuck there overnight instead of reaching their original Bologna destination this week.
Albanian Airlines had leased two aircraft and crews from the Slovak carrier as part of its planned expansion, but something went very wrong when the pilots flew one plane to their home base in Slovakia this week in the middle of the flight without telling the Albanian passengers who where headed to Italy.
The Slovaks say the plane had a technical problem, but incident remains yet to be explained, with unconfirmed media reports that pilots of the plane, from neighboring Czech Republic, where unhappy because they had not been paid by the the Slovak company and deviated the plane in protest.
“The responsible party for everything that happened is Air Slovakia,” said Albanian Airlines President Ali Evsen in a press conference following the incident.
He added the Albanian national carrier will be seeking monetary compensation from Air Slovakia and wants a full investigation of what had happened.
The Albanian aviation authorities have intervened, calling the incident “very grave.” They also plan to file a complaint with the European Civil Aviation
“We will go until the end with the investigation to protect the rights of passengers,” the Director General of Civil Aviation Ervin Mazniku said in a press conference.
The Boeing 737 aircraft owned by Air Slovakia was being wet-leased with the crew to Albanian Airlines for three months.
The incident could be a blow a multi-million dollar partnership between the two companies, as Albanian Airlines had planed to rely on the larger and more modern Air Slovakia planes to expand its destinations, according to international publications that monitor airline deals.
It’s common practice in aviation for companies to lease planes and crews to other airlines for certain periods, even changing the plane’s livery to the new company.
