MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Ecuador begins legal actions against Air Comet; thousands still stranded

Air Comet had regular flights to several Latinamerican countries

The Ecuadorian government filed an appeal against Spain's Air Comet for alleged fraud and requested board directors be put under preventive custody, announced Migration Ministry Alexis Rivas during a press conference in Quito.

Air Comet belonging to the Spanish tourism group Marsans had its operating licence suspended at the beginning of the week by the Spanish government after the company ceased activities and cancelled scheduled flights unable to re-pay a loan to German banks that leased the aircraft.

“Clearly there were dishonesty and irresponsibility in Air Comet's operations, which caused losses and pain to passengers who had bought tickets and were preparing to fly for Christmas”, Rivas said, adding that his government also demanded the preventive imprisonment of Germanico Maya, Air Comet legal representative in Ecuador.

Rivas said Ecuador has evidence showing Air Comet was involved in several irregular schemes, and the company continued offering services and selling tickets, despite its liquidity and financial problems.

It is estimated that 7.000 passengers with paid tickets, mostly Latinamericans were left stranded by the collapse of Air Comet. The company flew regularly to Peru, Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia, Cuba and Mexico.

The Spanish government arranged for some emergency flights to help with the stranded but it has been insufficient. Protesting passengers organized demonstrations and sit-ins in Madrid’ main airport Barajas delaying normal traffic in the air terminal.

The Spanish government announced it would be billing the Marsans Group for the emergency flights and the Spanish Consumers Association has called on all travellers to keep all documents (tickets, vouchers, bookings, etc) so as to begin legal actions in Spain against the group.

The only bright spot in the collapse of Air Comet division is that some of the staff (out of an estimated 640 left redundant) managed to hit the jackpot of the Spanish lottery, the world richest.

When the number 78294 was called during the morning ceremony, 584 millions Euros of Christmas cheer was up for grabs for those who shared winning tickets. Apparently Mariano Martinez, 38, and Julio Martín, 56, chose the winning number for colleagues.

“The lottery shop offered us three numbers and we chose this one because we liked it,” said Mariano as he quaffed cava sparkling wine, “We reserved it for Marsans workers and they bought fractions of the tickets from the shop either in person or by fax.

”What is great is that the money is really spread around the employees,“ he explained, ”With our salaries, most bought one or two decimos”. Each decimo, which cost 20 euros, paid out at 15,000 to 1.