Many Armenians, who are currently enjoying their vacation in Sharm el-Sheikh may not be able to return Yerevan next week as the Spot Air charter company cancelled the flight from Sharm el-Sheikh to Yerevan due to the debts by tour operator Happy Voyage company, Spot Air informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.
Earlier Armenian News-NEWS.am informed about the scandal in Yerevan airport, as Happy Voyage company, which has sold the Sharm el-Sheikh tickets to over 140 passengers from Yerevan, could not secure the flight for its passengers. The Happy Voyage has been warned about the possibility of flight cancellation by Sport Air charter company several times prior to the incident, Spot Air representative told Armenian News-NEWS.am.
In exclusive interview with Armenian News-NEWS.am the official representative of Spot Air charter company clarified the situation regarding cancellation of the Sharm el-Sheikh – Yerevan flight scheduled on August 15, and previous scandal with Yerevan-Sharm El Sheikh flight on August 7, reserved by the Happy Voyage tour operator.
“According to the aircraft charter agreement signed by our charter company Spot Air and tour operator Happy Voyage, the complete payment has to be done at least 5 working days before each flight. Tour Operator "Happy Voyage" was reminded about this important condition several times in advance and even during the week before the flight operation was warned about cancellation of the flight in case if they do not pay full amount for the flight. However, despite all these warnings, emails and calls, which they did not even care to respond to, the payment was not done in time. As a result, on Friday, August 3, we had to inform Tour Operator and Civil Aviation of Erevan about cancellation of the flight Erevan-Sharm El Sheikh due to non-execution of contractual obligations (lack of payment) by official email. Happy Voyage had ignored our emails and calls and insisted on the flight ignoring the fact that complete payment has not been done. In spite of mentioned above, the payment was done only some hours before the flight, which was already cancelled.
We would like to emphasize that we would be in high risk to perform the flight without receiving the complete payment on our account with reference to our previous business working experience with Happy Voyage last year, where we still have some pending amounts to be paid by the tour operator. Nevertheless, we decided to complete our part of contract obligations and to protect the rights of passengers, so we performed the flight according to our first availability on August 8, 2012 (Yerevan- Sharm el Sheikh, time of departure 17:30 UTC timing). At the moment, Armenian passengers are in Sharm El Sheikh enjoying their vacation.
During the last two days we contacted Happy Voyage to inform in advance that they need to make the payment for the next flight, August 15, 2012. However, no clear explanations and actions have been done. That is why, today in the morning we informed them about cancellation of the next flight due to non-payment again. Such cancellation has been done 5 working days before the flight to allow tour operator to find another solution how to take passengers back. Our charter company is highly devoted to the contract terms and obligations, but when the tour operator does not respect the contract and does not perform their obligations, we are obliged to act as it is described in the above situation," the Sport Air charter company official representative told Armenian News-NEWS.am.