BANGKOK, Oct 26 — The Department of Civil Aviation has suspended the operation licence of PC Air until the private-owned airline clarified how its only plane was grounded leaving passengers stranded at South Korean airport.
The Department Director General Voradej Harnprasert said that PC Air submitted a request for charter flight operation licence for November but the Department would not approve the licence until all problems have been settled.
Under Thai aviation law, the licence for charter airline must be renewed every month.
He said the Department wanted a report from PC Air on the incident last week and information from the PC Air agent which was responsible for its financial transactions and also information from the oil company.
The Department wanted to make sure that there would be no repeat of such an incident in the future, he said.
A PC Air charter flight was grounded in Seoul last week over delayed payment of airport refueling expenses, which left hundreds of passengers stranded at South Korea’s biggest airport of Incheon.
Mr Voradej earlier told reporters that an investigation found that the private-owned Thai airline owed money for aircraft fuel so no oil company was available to refuel the aircraft for taking off and returning to Thailand. The fuel bill was around Bt10 million.
The director general said that on Monday, the Ministry of Transport would appoint a working group to investigate the issue and he expected that PC Air executives would come to discuss the issue with the department.
