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13,000 stranded after French airline collapses, says official

Paris: Some 13,000 passengers, mainly booked on flights to and from Algeria, are still stranded after France's second-largest airline Aigle Azur went into receivership, a senior French official said Monday, adding that several potential buyers had been identified.

The airline, which employs almost 1,200 staff, filed for bankruptcy and suspended flights last week after losses which prompted a shareholder coup that ousted the chief executive. "Out of 19,000 passengers who found themselves in difficulty at the peak of the crisis, there are still 13,000" who have yet to be repatriated, the secretary of state for transport, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, told the Le Parisien daily.

He said these included 11,000 passengers booked on flights into and out of Algeria, 600 on Mali flights as well as other destinations ranging from Russia to Lebanon.

Air France chartered two special flights on Saturday and then again on Sunday to help passengers booked on Algeria flights, which flew out one quarter full but were full on the return. "The hardest moment of the crisis will be over before the end of the week. At least half the passengers (affected) will have been repatriated," Djebbari said.

The airline transported last year some 1.9 million passengers, with destinations in Algeria making up half of its operations that brought in 300 million euros (USD 329 million) of revenue.

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