Flying Fox Airways (Ipoh) has been forced to delay its maiden flight from Ipoh to Medan Kuala Namu after the airline was denied permission to operate out of Ipoh. Originally scheduled to launch on December 13, the start-up says it received a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) on November 29 informing it that the airfield could only handle ATR72s as opposed to Flying Fox's B737-400. To compound matters, the NOTAM indicated that normal operations would only likely resume in June 2014. Flying Fox Airways chief executive officer Daniel Lee said the airline had been forced to refund over 17'000 tickets. “By the time we received the NOTAM, 80 per cent of the tickets for our flights in December had been snapped up and also 50 per cent of the tickets for flights from January to June,” Mr Lee told The Malay Mail Online. Between April 2011 and November 2012, Ipoh underwent an upgrading exercise which, among other improvements, saw its runway 04/22 extended by 200m and its apron enlarged in order to accommodate B737 and A320 aircraft. Mr Lee said Flying Fox would consider acquiring smaller aircraft should Ipoh still remain unavailable for operations in June.