PENANG - Airport 'Mix-up' Leaves 300 Stranded

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Grassroots Information Coordination Center (GICC) : One Thread

[Fair Use: For Educational and Research Purposes Only]

Saturday, June 24, 2000

Airport 'Mix-Up' Leaves 300 Stranded

By Catherine Chong

PENANG: A "mix-up'' in the crew's duty roster resulted in some 300 passengers being stranded for over six hours at the Penang International Airport early yesterday.

Several passengers claimed that no crew was assigned to Flight MH182 from Kuala Lumpur to Madras via Penang which was scheduled to leave at 10pm on Thursday.

They said that two pilots, escorted by airport policemen, only arrived at 3.25am with instructions to fly the plane back to Kuala Lumpur and not Madras.

The plane, which left at 4am, landed at KLIA in Sepang at 5.10am where another aircraft later took the passengers to Madras at 12.30pm.

A MAS spokesman confirmed that there was a "mismatch of the crew's roster and flight schedule which was prepared months ago.''

Describing the delay as a one-off incident, she expressed regret over the glitch which even the second back-up, the checking system, failed to detect.

"MAS would like to apologise for the inconvenience caused and we had done all we could to attend to the passengers,'' she added.

Heart patient V. Sananthony, who had to cancel his appointment for a check-up in Madras, said they were first told the flight was delayed due to technical problems.

The 48-year-old computer programmer said a group of American passengers had to practically force the truth out from a chief steward.

Sananthony also claimed MAS did not make any effort to attend to the passengers who were only served dinner at 3.30am.

He said their ordeal started when the plane landed in Penang at 9.10pm where the passengers were asked to alight as the flight would only depart for Madras at 10pm.

He said they were finally flown back to KLIA at 5.10am and taken to a hotel.

http://thestar.com.my/online/newsreport.asp?file=/2000/6/24/nation/2404ccdf.asp&newspage=nation

-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), June 24, 2000


Moderation questions? read the FAQ