KUCHING, Oct 13 — Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) Women chief Kho Teck Wan today urged the Transport Ministry and the Malaysia Aviation Commission (Mavcom) to investigate the licence and business practices of MYAirline Sdn Bhd which suddenly suspended its operations for an indefinite period, effective yesterday.

She said air transportation is critical national infrastructure where a minor disruption can cause severe consequences.

She said she received enquiries yesterday morning from affected passengers whose flights were cancelled by MYAirline.

"There is a group of students from Swinburne University of Technology, Sarawak campus going to Kuala Lumpur for their internship this coming Saturday.

"The students are scrambling to find alternate flights to Kuala Lumpur after MYAirline’s sudden announcement,” Kho said in a statement this morning.

Kho, who is also a political secretary for Sarawak Premier Tan Sri Abang Johari Openg, said according to MYAirline press statement, affected passengers are responsible for looking for alternate flights on their own and that an email address was provided for them to reach out to their customer service for assistance.

"I had written to the airline yesterday morning to enquire about the refund for the affected passengers, however, I am yet to hear from its management,” she said.

She said the flight cancellation and halt of services are inevitable due to the nature of the airline’s current condition but stressed that it is extremely irresponsible to leave the customer service counters unattended when an official communication channel was provided to the passengers.

She urged the management to respond to customer enquiries as soon as possible, either by replying to the email provided or through a press statement, especially regarding the plan and procedure for refunding the purchased tickets.

In a statement yesterday, MYAirline said it was "exploring all avenues to reactivate its operations and fly the skies again.”

It said due to the deep financial constraints that it was facing at present, it was unable to offer the affected passengers at the airports any immediate service recovery options.

It said the financial pressures had made it necessary to suspend operations pending the shareholder restructuring and recapitalisation of the airline.