SINGAPORE : A planned inaugural flight to Singapore by the
Jakarta-based low cost carrier AWAIR failed to take off on
Wednesday.
AWAIR, the Indonesian arm of Malaysia's AirAsia, was forced to
cancel the flight because it had not received final clearance from
the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS).
AWAIR issued a statement and even called a news conference.
It blamed the cancellation on a last minute request from the CAAS
for additional documents to be filed.
AWAIR said it had previously submitted all relevant, regulatory and
safety-compliant documents to CAAS, and proceeded to sell tickets,
believing it had fulfilled the requirements.
In response, the CAAS said that although AWAIR had indicated in
mid-December that it wanted to fly to Singapore, the documents it
submitted only showed that it had rights to operate domestic routes
in Indonesia.
It was only late last Friday that it sent in documents confirming
that it had approval from Indonesian authorities to fly here.
CAAS said AWAIR had gone ahead to sell tickets before receiving the
green light to operate here.
This was confirmed by Transport Minister Yeo Cheow Tong who added
that CAAS will give the necessary clearance to AWAIR as soon as it
is satisfied that all the safety issues have been met.
AWAIR is hoping for an early resolution.
Sendjaja Widjaja, President Director of AWAIR, said: "We try to
resolve as soon as possible. Tomorrow, we try to meet with the
director of Air Transport. Hopefully, we could have a clearance
when we could have a landing right to Singapore. Of course, at
present we do not know until we meet the people from the air
transport here."
AWAIR was relaunched as a low-fare no-frills carrier last
year.
It operates domestic routes within Indonesia, and Singapore is its
first overseas destination.
All 293 passengers who were scheduled to board the AWAIR flight on
Wednesday were transferred to another airline. - CNA