Travellers vent frustration after Scoot flight delay of over 24 hours, Latest Singapore News - The New Paper
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Travellers vent frustration after Scoot flight delay of over 24 hours

This article is more than 12 months old

A group of travellers headed for Singapore were stranded in Sydney for more than 24 hours after their Scoot flight on Saturday was delayed, then cancelled.

There was chaos among passengers of Scoot Flight TR1 at Sydney Airport when a defect in a circuit board grounded the Boeing 787 jetliner bound for Singapore.

The flight had been scheduled to depart at 1.30pm (10.30am Singapore time) on Saturday, but finally took off at 4.33pm (Sydney time) on Sunday and touched down in Singapore at around 7pm (Singapore time). Netizens took to social media to vent their frustration at the snaking queues, interminable waits and other inconveniences.

Marketing executive Jay Teo, 31, who was on holiday with his family, told The Straits Times yesterday: "Pre-empting passengers with what to expect would have allowed us to make informed decisions and prevent a chaotic situation.

"Budget travellers should be the easiest to appease because our expectations are not high... We are not paying a premium. Just explain what's the issue, what we should do next and everyone's happy."

Scoot told The Straits Times that an avionics card in the aircraft had to be replaced and the procedure involved a "software load" that took several hours.

By the time it was fixed, limits on crew duty hours had been exceeded and they had to get their rest period of 12 hours as mandated by aviation regulations, causing the flight to be cancelled. Scoot said it tried to arrange for transport and hotel rooms for the passengers, but there had been "limited options" due to the school-holiday crunch.

Some passengers said transport to the hotels did not arrive, while others said they arrived at one hotel arranged by the airline, only to discover that it was fully booked. Scoot apologised and acknowledged the confusion caused by the miscommunication with the hotels.

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