Travel Nightmare in Hong Kong - Know Your Passengers Rights - Yahoo Voices - voices.yahoo.com

Making my way home, for Christmas, to the United States from Singapore was something I had looked forward to for months. Normally air travel is the part of any long trip I enjoy the most and the company I worked for let us fly the best airline at that time. We left Singapore on time, as usual, and made our way to Hong Kong. It was to be a short layover so the stop was quite short. In less than thirty minutes the passengers reloaded the plane and the plane pulled away from the gate.

The reputation of this airline was such that everyone expected soon we would be in the air and on our way to the USA. Even the airline's own inside terminal ground staff quickly left for home as it was quite late at night, after all the plane was away from the gate and on the way out to the runway for take off. Perhaps they had not been properly trained in what passengers rights are because that action left us stranded and abandoned.

We were all wrong! The plane sat near the end of the taxi way for over one hour. Finally it started to move, but to our dismay it was not moving to the end of the runway for take off. It was returning to the gate; the empty gate with no ground staff to assist the unhappy passengers. It was late, it was cold and we were all quite upset. We soon were informed by a security guard that the plane waiting area was to be cleared as it had to be locked for the night. It was obvious we were not going anywhere.

Fortunately I was aware of IATA rules and regulations that cover passengers rights, due to many flights over the years. I gathered a group of fellow travelers, explained our passengers rights and told them we could go to hotels and get refunds in the morning for taxi fare, dinner, a breakfast and hotel room. All we had to do was inform the transit desk of our intention. We did so but were told there were no hotels with vacant rooms any where in Hong Kong due to some festival. Beyond that even the few airline personnel from other airlines gave no thought to our passengers rights. Indeed they seemed amused. We were not at all amused.

Fortunately I was able to locate a hotel that still had ten vacant rooms. I had counted the number of people and asked how many rooms were needed and had been told ten was the number. At the hotel the clerk checked us all in one by one and led us through the hotel, room by room. Having been the some what shepherd of the group I planned to wait till the last room before turning in for the night.

The clerk showed what I thought would be the next to the last room to a very attractive young lady from Spain. She thanked me and went inside as the clerk turned around and headed to the elevator. I went to follow him and was informed that he had just given the last room out. He thought that I was with the young lady from Spain.

To say I was frustrated would be to say the least of how I was feeling. The girl from Spain was still in the door way, watching what had happened. She looked at me and said, "You had best get in here so we can both get some sleep." She did not have to ask me twice. As we went in what we found was one double bed. She got cleaned up and into bed and I soon followed, both of us falling asleep quite fast. In the morning she told me, "My family will never believe this story. Especially that we spent the night together and you were a perfect gentleman, what is your name anyway?"

On return to the airport the rest of the trip went on as it should have with the apologies from Singapore Airlines, still the best but some what tarnished airline at that time. So morale of the story is; know your passengers rights, demand your passengers rights be observed. Report any violation of passengers rights to IATA as soon as possible after it occurs.