Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific is facing a backlash from some stranded travellers after a flight cancellation in Bangkok left more than 200 passengers stuck in the aircraft for five hours, before they were shuttled to a hotel with their passports taken away without explanation.
A passenger, who only identified herself by her surname Lee, told the South China Morning Post on Tuesday that she and three friends had expected to depart the day before from Bangkok to Hong Kong on flight CX630 at 4.55pm following a holiday.
But nearly 24 hours later on Tuesday afternoon, Lee said she was among passengers still stranded at the Suvarnabhumi Airport with no departure time in sight and her passport yet to be returned.
The flight on Monday was first faced with a four-hour delay as passengers did not get on board until 8pm.
"We were waiting in the plane for a few hours until there was an announcement at 11pm saying the flight could not take off. We were finally able to leave the flight before 2am," Lee, the 36-year-old designer, said.
"The airport arranged coaches to send us to the hotel. It was past 3am when we arrived there.
"What added to our anxiety was that the airport staff took away our passports and put wristbands on us."
Lee added that passengers asked why their passports were taken away, but the ground staff, who were not wearing Cathay uniforms, could not fluently communicate with them in English.
"They were holding our passports while saying something that we didn't understand, then they gave us a claim check.
"We feel very insecure as they didn't even have any official announcement and updates, nor did any Cathay staff support us at the hotel."
Affected passengers spent a night at Amaranth Suvarnabhumi Hotel near the airport, she said.
A source told the South China Morning Post the crew discovered a spoiler fault of the aircraft at 8pm Thailand time and returned the plane to the boarding gate, while some first-class and business-class passengers were transferred to CX674 for Hong Kong.
CX674, which was scheduled to depart at 3.05pm Thailand time on Monday, ultimately left at 12.51am on Tuesday.
"We were not even offered any food and water when we got stuck on the plane. There were at least 200 passengers affected. Only passengers from the business were offered ice-cream," Lee said.
"We kept on calling the Cathay customer service hotline to get the latest information. We didn't sleep at all, just to wait for updates. We didn't have food for the whole night and my friends were getting sick with a stomach ache," Lee said.
The ground staff only told her there would be email updates on Tuesday early morning, she added.
An email seen by the South China Morning Post revealed that CX630 flight encountered a technical issue while on the ground during preparations in Bangkok. Despite engineers rectifying the problem, the same fault reappeared after departing from the departure gate.
The carrier, meanwhile, said it would compensate affected passengers with a total of 10,000 Asia Miles.
According to the website of Cathay, the next flight flying from Bangkok to Hong Kong is CX630 due to depart at 4.55pm Bangkok time on Tuesday.
The South China Morning Post has contacted Cathay for comment.
