Passengers onboard a Singapore Airlines (SIA) flight were purportedly stuck inside the plane for 8 hours without any air-conditioning at Shanghai Airport, and their flight ended up being cancelled in the end, meaning they waited for 8 hours for nothing.
The Long Wait on SQ833
In a Facebook post, passenger Annie Li said she had been stuck on her scheduled flight on SQ833 from Shanghai to Singapore for almost eight hours, with the flight originally supposed to depart at 4.45 pm on Wednesday (6 Sep). However, as of 12.35am, about 8 hours later, the plane was still on the tarmac.
According to information from flight tracking website FlightRadar24, the SQ833 flight was supposed to land in Singapore at about 10.20pm, with its usual flight duration being about 5 hours.
However, the plane made one round around the Pudong International Airport tarmac before returning back to its position.
A Disturbing Cabin Environment
Li posted a video showing passengers, including children and the elderly, standing inside the humid cabin with some of them fanning themselves inside the stuffy environment.
She added that there were no air-conditioning and the circulation of air inside the plane were poor.
Another passenger complained on the XiaoHongShu social media platform saying that she almost suffocated because of the lack of air conditioning.
A third passenger also shared about the experience on XiaoHongShu, sharing that the plane suffered an engine malfunction prior to the take off, resulting in the plane having to return to the gate. The temperature inside the cabin also started to increase and the plane door allegedly couldn’t be opened as the captain made numerous “broadcasts” for help.
A fourth passenger also added that the people inside ended up being served 3 meals because of the 8-hour delay, and when the flight was eventually cancelled in the end, passengers purportedly went “crazy” as their travel plans went up in smoke.
Li later posted an update at about 1.30am, sharing that following the unsavoury experience on the flight, they were then faced with the ordeal of a long queue at the airport, with only 2 staff members handling the hundreds of passengers.
SIA’s Apology
A spokesperson for SIA spoke to Channel NewsAsia and apologised for the incident and said that the plane had “encountered technical issues when the aircraft was still on the ground”, and that they had to disable the ground power for safety reasons.
Oxygen tanks were provided for passengers who were short of breath when the plane’s engine was shut down for more than 30 minutes, and the aircon for 1.5 hours.
They also added that passengers were given meals and refreshments, and despite the best efforts of their engineers, they decided to cancel the flight because they needed more time to fix the issue(s).
SIA reiterated their apology and said that they will review their procedures to prevent such things from happening again.
Images source: Sandy龙 on XiaoHongShu and Annie Li on Facebook