SkyGreece announces it is temporarily ceasing all operations

After a turbulent week that saw angry passengers stranded at Pearson Airport and overseas for days, embattled airline SkyGreece has announced that it is temporarily ceasing all operations.

In a statement released Thursday, the airline apologized to its customers for what it called an “operational crisis,” saying it suffered financial setbacks due to the economic crisis in Greece.

On top of that, they said, recent “technical issues” had left the company facing “a system-wide multi-day delay and significant additional expenses.”

“As a result, SkyGreece management regrets to announce that it must temporarily cease all operations,” the company announced.

The airline is urging passengers who’ve booked flights with them to contact their travel agents.

SkyGreece came under fire when repeated delays and cancellations kept hundreds of passengers grounded at airports in Toronto, Croatia and Greece, forcing the jilted travelers to find accommodations, or another ticket.

Marcos Mavric told CityNews his wife and children were left stranded in Zagreb, Croatia when SKyGreece cancelled their flight. Croatian authorities told them to find their own way home because it was uncertain when SkyGreece would fly again, he said.

Another customer, Dispina Anastasopoulos, is eight months pregnant and stuck in Athens with her husband and three young sons. “We’ve been trying to get flights out,” she told CityNews. “There’s no flights, especially for our family of five … It’s emotional.”

SkyGreece had been paying for Anastasopoulos and her family to stay in an Athens hotel while they waited for a flight. But on Thursday Anastasopoulos said the airline had stopped footing the bill and her family was about to be evicted.

Anastasopoulos used Facebook to contact Father Nicholas Alexandris, a priest and former co-owner of SkyGreece, and he told her he had quit the business two weeks earlier.

But when CityNews contacted Alexandris on Wednesday, also via Facebook, he said he was in Greece working for the company and directed inquiries to the other co-owners, Bill Alefantis and Peter Chilakos and Ken Stathakis. “Why always Father Nicholas?” he wrote.

The airline owned just one plane said that another could not be chartered to get passengers to their destinations.

Sky Greece announces ceasing of operations by CityNewsToronto

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