Scoopon has refunded about $1 million to Air Australia passengers who were stranded when the air carrier collapsed on Friday. These travelers purchased their Air Australia tickets from Scoopon, a group buying site.

Scoopon Executive General Manager Jared Baker said the company had posted a representative at Phuket Airport in Thailand to assist customers with meals, bus transfers and accommodation as well as the payment of reimbursements.

The firm had two separate agreements with Air Australia in July to sell $599 tickets to Phuket from Melbourne and Brisbane. However, not all passengers got refunds since some travel agents cited terms and conditions in their insurance contracts that excludes insolvency.

Some passengers had to buy tickets costing $3,500 to fly via Singapore and Darwin which is over 30 hours, just to be able to return home to Australia. Other air carriers offered to match Air Australia rates or lower fares, while Jetstar deployed an extra plane to Phuket to ferry the stranded passengers. Estimated to reach 4,000.

Mr Baker called on all travel companies to put customers ahead of profits when situations like what happened to Air Australia occurs.

Ironically, Air Australia even passed an audit before it was placed on administration last week. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority explained it although it was aware that the air carrier was under financial pressure it allow the firm's planes to fly because there was no compromise in safety.

Korda Mentha was appointed administrators of Air Australia. However, the fate of the company's 300 employees appear to be hanging in mid-air. A crew member complained that none of them have any correspondence from Air Australia Chief Executive Michael James or any other senior officials.

However, Mark Korda of Korda Mentha assured the Air Australia employees that the administrator's priorities are the workers and passengers. Creditors of the company are slated to meet on Wednesday to decide if Air Australia would be put into liquidation which would allow the 300 employees to access superannuation and redundancy entitlements.

Mr Korda said the second priority is to sell the business and find a buyer and the third priority is to investigate if the company was trading while insolvent. The asset are expected to be minimal because the shuttered air carrier just leased its jets and did not have terminals.

He advised stranded passengers who bought their tickets on credit to contact their credit card companies and apply for a charge-back.

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