Facebook user Faith Tan shared about how her return flight to Singapore was cancelled and she was left stranded in New Zealand for 2 days.
She called out her tour group Chan Brothers for not having a sense of urgency, and said that they were telling her to wait instead of booking the next available flight using other airlines.
Chan Brothers have since reached out and issued a statement responding to the incident
Chan Brothers responds
Travellers on our tour group had their return flight on 11 December 2022 confirmed on Air New Zealand but it was cancelled by the airline due to operational requirements as cited in their official notice.
We were only informed of the flight cancellation by Air Zealand when checking in our group at Auckland airport, at the same time as our travellers in the group.
Our tour leader at the frontline and our team back in Singapore have been working tirelessly round the clock to connect with Air New Zealand on the matter requesting for a resolution for our travellers since then. It was not a deflection of responsibility on our part but a standard operating procedure to always check in with the airline who issued the tickets especially when they were the one who cancelled the flight.
Unfortunately, the airline did not respond as speedily as we and our travellers had expected. While the tour leader had factually conveyed to the travellers that the matter was still pending updates from Air New Zealand officially, our team in Singapore had already started to look for alternative flights (including those by other carriers) to fly our travellers back home as soon as possible.
Despite the domino effect on subsequent scheduled flights as a result of the cancelled flight and the scarcity of available seats during this peak travel season, we managed to secure seats to fly back the first group of travellers one day later and the rest one day after.We would like to add that our travellers are well taken of in New Zealand by our tour leader on ground while our Singapore team are working round the clock to fly them back to Singapore as soon as possible; this may not be the case if travellers have booked the flights themselves as they will have to first call through the flooded hotline and then liaise with the airlines directly while having to worry about accommodation and meals among other concerns in a foreign land amid the distress of the flight cancellation.
Regards,
Jeremiah Wong
Chan Brothers Travel