- Low-cost carrier Primera Air shut down on Monday and canceled all its flights without giving passengers any notice.
- One woman in Washington, DC said she only realized she couldn’t fly home when she arrived at an abandoned check-in desk with two signs saying her flight was canceled and the company was bankrupt.
- Another passenger in Paris filmed dozens of people being told at the airport that they couldn’t fly.
Passengers are left stranded in foreign countries after Primera Air ceased operations on Monday and canceled all its flights without giving any notice.
The Danish low-cost carrier declared bankruptcy and shut down operations in a statement posted on its website on Monday night.
Many people who were due to take return flights home on the airlines said they weren’t told about the cancellations until they got to the airport.
Pavithra Selvakumar, a masters student in England, told Business Insider she only realized she couldn’t fly home from Washington, DC, when she arrived at the airport with her luggage – and saw an abandoned check-in counter and two signs about Primera Air’s shutdown and bankruptcy.
The sign on the left announced that Primera Air had ceased all operations and canceled all flights, while the one on the right contained a letter from the airline's board lamenting "a sad day for all the employees and passengers of Primera Air."
Take a look at them below:
Selvakumar told BI: "I received no notification about that," referring to Primera Air's administration and flight cancellations.
She added: "I just came here and saw two notices that all flights had been canceled because the company had been bankrupted in the check-in counter.
"There is no customer support here. Literally no one. I tried calling them, but there's no one answering the calls."
The airline, which had 15 planes in its fleet, started offering round-trip flights from London to cities in North America - including New York, Washington, DC, Boston, and Toronto - earlier this year. Tickets cost as little as £99 in the UK or $99 in the US.
Eric Jetner, another passenger due to fly from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris to New York, posted a video of dozens of passengers being told that they couldn't fly because Primera Air had shut down.
https://twitter.com/EricJetner/status/1047032182399733761?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
A representative for the airline told Business Insider on Monday that they could not immediately confirm plans for passengers left stranded by the airline because "all the employees of Primera Air are let go."
The UK Civil Aviation Authority said passengers who have traveled with Primera Air would have to make their own arrangements to get home.
It added that it was not providing refunds for unused tickets, but passengers can file a claim with their card providers or travel insurers.
Business Insider was unable to reach Primera Air for comment.