VIENNA, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Vienna airport will stop servicing flights of ailing Slovak budget airline SkyEurope (
SKYV.VI) by midnight Friday after SkyEurope failed to pay outstanding debt, operator Flughafen Wien said on Friday.
"Despite long and intensive talks with SkyEurope, the outstanding and due payments were not made by Friday, 3 p.m.," Flughafen Wien said in a statement. "Flughafen Wien therefore ends all services to SkyEurope by Friday, midnight."
"Skyeurope aircraft whose scheduled departure is later than that will not be handled anymore," it said, adding that it would still handle incoming SkyEurope flights.
Flughafen granted SkyEurope a grace period until Friday to pay outstanding invoices after temporarily grounding its flights on Tuesday already. [ID:LB134582] SkyEurope, which obtained creditor protection in Slovakia in June, said last month it won a new investor who was ready to inject as much as 16.5 million euros ($23.6 million) in fresh equity and also got a 5 million euro bridge loan.
The economic slowdown has hit the airline hard and its financial problems have added to the woes as it lost even more passengers because of concerns it may go insolvent. In July, passenger traffic declined by 37 percent year-on-year.
SkyEurope was not immediately available for a comment.
UPDATE 1-Vienna airport halts SkyEurope flights from Saturday | Industries | Industrials, Materials & Utilities | Reuters
It sounds really no good for SkyEurope...