SANTO DOMINGO.- The president of the airline Caribair Dominicana yesterday said they‘ll appeal the Dominican Civil Aviation Institute’s (IDAC) one-year suspension.

However Rafael Rosado refused to comment on the IDAC’s accusation the airline conducted illegal flights, allegations he said took him by surprise. "We cannot comment because it was a letter sent us at 5 p.m., we’ll speak with them (IDAC officials) tomorrow but we don’t do anything by saying something, because we don’t know anything, all this has taken us by surprise."

He said he’ll comment on the topic in a Tuesday afternoon press conference.

According to the IDAC, Caribair broke the aviation law by conducting commercial flights in private aircraft and commercial flights disguised as private.

"I don’t know what all this is, we don’t have anything to respond, we’ll speak about that tomorrow," Rosado said.

“The operations are all paralyzed since 5 p.m. the same day and it didn’t matter to them that there are passengers who had paid, but we’ll wait to see what they’re going to say, because this is a situation that can be appealed, and of course we’re going to appeal, but we don’t know anything, since with the holiday we haven’t been able to speak with the Civil Aviation officials,” he said.

Meanwhile Dominican Airlines Association president Héctor Genao regretted Caribair’s situation, because in his view it affects a large number of aviation professionals who are without their jobs. “What we hope is that some extenuating situations such as the number of employees who depend on that airline are taken into account."

SOURCE: diariolibre.com