Troubled Slovak airline SkyEurope won a grace period until Aug. 14 to pay outstanding invoices after Vienna airport temporarily grounded its flights on Aug. 11, airport operator Flughafen Wien said.

Budget airline SkyEurope, which obtained creditor protection in Slovakia in June and has been seeking to raise new funds for months, has to pay its debts to Flughafen by Aug. 14, 13:00GMT, or else the operator will suspend all services, Flughafen said.

On Aug. 11, Vienna airport grounded SkyEurope flights including to Athens and Nice because it said the operator had not paid its dues. It resumed its services after SkyEurope promised to pay them by Aug. 14, Flugafen said.

SkyEurope said last month that it had found a new investor who was ready to inject as much as EUR16.5 million in fresh equity and also got a EUR5 million bridge loan.

The economic slowdown has hit the airline hard and its financial problems have added to the woes as it lost even more passengers because of concerns it may go insolvent. In July, passenger traffic declined by 37 percent year-on-year.