Airline founder apologises to passengers after getting stuck overnight at airport
It seems almost unimaginable to us in Australia (or most countries really) but the founder of an airline went and apologised to its customers after a series of flight delays.
And before you get your hopes up for the state of Australian aviation, it wasn’t Alan Joyce.
The founder of the Taiwanese carrier Starlux Airlines, flew to an airport to personally apologise to passengers after their flight was delayed and cancelled, according to Taiwan News.
The chairman of Starlux, Chang Kuo-wei, went to Tokyo Narita Airport in Japan the morning after a flight was cancelled on 6 May.
The original flight was set to depart at 3:45pm but was delayed due to strong winds. At 5:30pm, the Starlux passengers were moved to another flight which eventually boarded at about 7pm, but another flight crew had to be sourced, pushing the departure time back to after 11pm.
The aircraft Airbus A330-941 with registration B58302 of Starlux (iStock/Thanh Liem)
These passengers sat on the plane until after midnight when the flight was cancelled. They then had to stay in the airport terminal overnight until they were given sleeping bags at 1am.
A departure time of 6am the following morning was initially given for the replacement flight but that was changed to 8am. Passengers weren’t given vouchers for food or drinks, according to Taiwan News.
Kuo-wei then made his way to the airline that morning to apologise. He was seen in a video explaining to passengers the “really strong winds” that delayed the initial flight. He went on to tell passengers about the second flight being delayed by an aircraft maintenance check and then the crew exceeding their permitted working hours.
Then, the immigration officers had finished working so the airline couldn’t operate until morning, Kuo-wei told the passengers.
Starlux recently began operating flights from Taipei to Los Angeles, alongside its array of routes in Asia.
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