MONTREAL — The majority owner of SkyGreece Airlines says he’s sorry for the *******’s grounding that has ******** about 1,000 passengers.
“It’s very, very, very bad but it’s beyond my control,” Ken Stathakis said in a telephone interview from Toronto.
“I cannot help it, I couldn’t do anything. I’m very, very sorry.”
SkyGreece cancelled all of its flights last week, saying it was due to technical issues and financial setbacks resulting from the Greek economic ******, but didn’t elaborate. The ******* called the move a temporary situation and said its operations were expected to resume soon.
******** passengers may have to wait three weeks to get answers about the company and the ownership status of its only aircraft — a Boeing 767 that is parked at Pearson International Airport in Mississauga, Ont.
Passenger rights advocate Gabor Lukacs has called for the Canadian Transportation Agency to order the ******* to rebook its ******** passengers on other airlines within 24 hours and put up $8.7 million of security to cover passenger claims.
“SkyGreece does not support proceeding on an expedited basis,” a lawyer representing the ******* said in an email to the agency on Monday, adding that SkyGreece is “in the process of consulting with its stakeholders with a view to restructuring.”
SkyGreece wishes to resolve these issues as quickly as possible, but it will “require careful analysis, consultation with all of its stakeholders, and proceeding in a manner that allows a full response by all stakeholders,” Massimo Starnino said.
The agency had given the ******* until 5 p.m. ET Monday to respond to a request from Lukacs for an expedited review of his complaint.
Lukacs said he was disappointed by SkyGreece’s objection.
“It adds insult to ****** to the passengers who are currently ********,” he said in an interview.
Lukacs also asked them to answer a series of questions about its ownership structure, finances, assets, disposal of assets and number of ******** passengers.
He said he wants to ensure that no money was inappropriately taken out of the company through the payment of dividends or transfer of assets.
“What I want to make sure is that if there is any money for anybody involved in this, that money goes to passengers,” he said from Halifax.
In the email, Starnino said a substantive response to the issues raised by Lukacs is “complex and will be a time-consuming process, particularly given the context of Greece’s broader economic ******, the impact of that ****** on SkyGreece’s operations, and the voluminous request for information.”
The ******* was founded in 2012 and started operations in 2014 with one plane. A 2013 report from ******* publication Flight Global said SkyGreece entered into a lease-purchase arrangement through a U.S. bank on behalf of an American investor.