Airlines Suspending Operations: Comtel Air fails

The operations of the start-up Austrian carrier, which launched passenger services in October 2011 lasted less than two months. The airline linked Birmingham with Amritsar via Vienna using wet-leased Boeing 757s. Founded in 1989, Comtel initially operated a Falcon 2000 on executive charter flights. Passenger services from Birmingham to Vienna were launched in October 2011 but were abandoned on 17 November 2011, two days after the much publicised incident in which 180 passengers on a Comtel Air flight returning from Amritsar to Birmingham were asked to find £23,000 towards the fuel bill for the Vienna-Birmingham sector. The failure was actually the second in less than three years for Comtel Air, which briefly operated the same route from April 2009, again using wet-leased Boeing 757s, under the Air Sylhet brand.

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