Times Strait reports:
PANGKALAN BUN/JAKARTA – Indonesia’s transport ministry will investigate all Indonesia AirAsia flight schedules from Monday as part of a government probe into Flight QZ8501 that went missing almost a week ago.
This comes as the ministry said flight QZ8501 was on an unauthorised flight schedule because the airline was only permitted to fly the Surabaya-Singapore route on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Flight QZ8501 took off last Sunday and the airline had not sought permission to change its schedule prior to the flight.
“We are going to investigate all AirAsia flight schedules,” said Djoko Muratmodjo, acting general-director for air navigation in the transport ministry. “Hopefully we can start on next Monday. We won’t focus on licences, just schedules.”
“It might be possible to revoke AirAsia’s licence in Indonesia,” Muratmodjo added.
The transport ministry suspended AirAsia's Surabaya-Singapore route on Friday. "AirAsia's permit for the route has been frozen because it violated the route permit given," he said.
The airline said it would cooperate fully with the investigation and would not comment on the matter till the investigation is completed.
The ministry said "customers who have booked AirAsia's Surabaya-Singapore tickets should be compensated with other airline tickets as per the existing regulation."