200 Passengers Unhappy With Treatment After Tiger Aiways Delays Flight

[Thaising]

SINGAPORE : About 200 passengers of a Tiger Airways flight to Krabi on Friday evening were made to wait for their delayed flight with apparently no updates from the airliner.

TR 188 was eventually cancelled and the passengers were checked into M Hotel.

But many were unhappy with the turn of events.

Callers to the MediaCorp News hotline said their flight had been initially scheduled to take off at 8.15pm on Friday.

But the plane eventually left only at about 9.50pm.

Less than an hour into the flight, the plane was turned back to Singapore.

The passengers said the captain had made an announcement that this was because "there was something wrong with the air conditioning."

One stewardess apparently told a group on board that there was not enough oxygen.

One passenger told Channel NewsAsia that it was hot and humid in the plane, and one even had difficulty breathing.

When passengers arrived back in Singapore, many were unhappy that there was no representative from the airline to explain what had happened.

One airport official was said to have told the passengers that the plane would take off again at 12.30am.

This was stated in copies of a letter which were left on a table.

The passengers claimed that they came across the letter which was not distributed.

Subsequently, another letter stated that the flight had been postponed to 11am on Saturday due to crew rotation.

By 2.30am, the passengers collected their baggage and many made their way to M Hotel.

[jingjoe]

They (Tiger) out-did themselves last night cancelling a flight between the Gold Coast & Melbourne. Over 100 very annoyed passengers who were kept guessing for hours before being turned away without another flight option. A spokesperson today said it wasn't caused by any malfunction, but that it is NOT company policy to divulge reasons for cancellations. He also offered a $25 voucher to affected customers for their next Tiger flight.

Tiger may be in for a very short run in the Aussie domestic scene if they think treating customers with the contempt of Ryan Air or Easy Jet will wash.

I note that their promised flights to Alice Springs have also been postponed until March '08 as Qantas won't provide handling services at Alice Springs airport. Tiger need to establish their own handling facilities before flights can commence.

One might have thought they'd have got their s-hit together BEFORE taking peoples money, and then flushing their holiday plans down the toilet.