Just days after I wrote about the dire situation at Air Moldova, two new incidents have come to light.

In the first, a scheduled Air Moldova flight from Chisinau to Greece was grounded.

My translation:

Dozens of Moldovans who were ready to head to the Corfu Islands and Zakinthos in Greece on vacation were sent home and told that the flight was canceled.

Air Moldova employees told us that the the flight was grounded for “operational reasons” that were based on technical issues.

An airplane developing technical issues is nothing new, but sending passengers home because you have no back-up plane (or plan) isn’t.

The other incident comes via Russian-language media. On June 30, an Air Moldova flight to Moscow was hit by lightning and forced to make an emergency landing in Zhukovsky (about 25 miles/40 km from Moscow).

Hey, it’s been a really rainy summer in Moscow, so surely this isn’t Air Moldova’s fault. But wait!

A week later, Dumitru Niculăiță, the spokesperson for Air Moldova said the plane HADN’T been hit by lightning.

Because of the inclement weather, the Air Moldova flight made several passes over the Moscow airport (Domodedovo). The Air Moldova flight, along with several others, was instructed to land at Zhukovsky.

Food and water were not provided to passengers because the flight was supposed to land at Domodedovo. Some passengers decided to leave at Zhukovsky, and complaints were not recorded.

“People were panicking. Some were crying, some were praying, and some threw up,” said one of the passengers on the flight.

Nice.

Meanwhile, Air Moldova has responded to the anonymous letter by employees warning of an impending fatal incident.

The letter is “devoid of logic” and “does not correspond to reality” said spokesperson Dumitru Niculăiță. Yes, the incident in Verona really happened, but not how it was described in the letter.”

Niculăiță later added that the letter could be a fake.

Fake news!

Niculăiță also denied information about the company’s debts, saying that it has no debts.

But according to the company’s own financial reports, Air Moldova had a profit of 1.2 million MDL in 2014 and a loss of 226.9 million MDL in 2015. In 2016, Air Moldova reported a net income of 8.6 million lei but the company currently has debts of almost 760 million MDL.

Unbelievable.

Anyone can find this information on the company’s website, so I really don’t know why Niculăiță feels compelled to lie about seemingly everything.

DO NOT FLY AIR MOLDOVA!