AirAsia flight QZ8501 not authorised to fly route?

The doomed AirAsia plane that crashed last weekend may have been flying on an unauthorised schedule.

According to a report by kompas.com, the airline has allegedly violated the letter of authorisation of the Director General of Civil Aviation republic, dated October 24, 2014, which only allows flights conducted on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Flight QZ8501, which was carrying 155 passengers and seven crew from Surabaya to Singapore on that fateful day before it was believed to have crashed in the Karimata Gulf in Central Kalimantan, however was flying on Sunday last week.

Indonesia’s Transport Ministry (KEMENHUB), in response to the incident, has temporarily suspended the AirAsia flights to Surabaya-Singapore route, effective today.

The announcement was made by its Head of Public Communication Centre, JA Batara over suspicion that the airline may have violated an agreement on the number of times it is allowed to ply the flight path, the portal reports.

It was said that KEMENHUB will however reconsider the ban after an investigation into the incident involving flight AirAsia QZ8501 has been conducted by the National Transportation Safety Committee of Indonesia.

Passengers who have already purchased tickets for the Surabaya-Singapore route are advised to change their flight schedules.

Meanwhile, AirAsia Indonesia's director of safety and security Captain Ahmad Sadikin said on Friday that he is not aware of the suspension and reiterated that the airline would never operate the route without a permit, reports kompas.com

"I can not answer in detail because I have never heard of the suspension. But if we do not have permission, then surely we will not fly," he said.

Former Air Force Chief Marshal (R) Chappy L Hakim too expressed shock over the allegation that the airline fleet was flying without a permit.

Chappy, via his twitter account @chappyhakim, questioned how did the doomed flight gets to fly on that fateful day if it never gets a clearance to do so.

"If it is true that the AirAsia flight flew without a permit, the big question is how did it manage to fly out of Surabaya; does it even have a flight plan," said Chappy who is now a national observer of the world's airlines.

Adalah sangat tidak masuk akal AirAsia bisa terbang hari Minggu padahal ijinnya tidak ada di hari itu? Believe it or Not ! it's happen !
— Chappy Hakim (@chappyhakim) January 2, 2015

Bila benar Air Asia tdk miliki ijin terbang pd hari Minggu, lalu bagaimana QZ 8501 take off dari Surabaya? Apakah tdk ada Flight Plannya?
— Chappy Hakim (@chappyhakim) January 2, 2015

This is not the first time that AirAsia was involved in the route approval issue.

On December 25 last year, the budget airline had to cancel direct flights from Melbourne to Bali with only days' notice following its failure to obtain approval for the new route, as reported by theage.com.

Passengers only received text messages notifying them that flights from Boxing Day onwards had been cancelled and they would instead be flown to Bali via Kuala Lumpur on a later flight.