A man who ranted about a flight delayed nearly 16 hours was being trashed by Singaporeans online today, mostly for not appreciating it was done for his safety.
The rebukes came swiftly for a man known as Deep Roy, who took to Facebook to express his disappointment, even alleging that staff had “fed lies” to passengers. Roy’s butthurt began soon after a Singapore Airlines flight to Delhi was delayed by technical issues from its Friday afternoon departure to the next morning, a delay that left hundreds of passengers stranded at Changi Airport.
“This has been the most horrible experience for more than 300 passengers stuck inside the holding area while we were fed lies continuously by the [Singapore Airlines] Ground Staff!” he wrote on the airline’s page Sunday, attracting more than 1,000 comments, mostly questioning his allegations and lashing out at him for not appreciating that he was safe and alive.
The A380 aircraft scheduled to carry flight SQ406 ran into mechanical problems, according to the airline’s notices to passengers. Deep Roy’s post said that the aircraft had issues with the brakes.
On Facebook, Desmond Chan said it was a testament to Singapore Airlines’ standards.
“When you fly with one of the best in the industry, their plane checks are rigorous, even a tiny bit which can cause safety issue is looked in depth, analyzed and repaired with precision,” Chan wrote. “The delay is to ensure safety, so don’t complain if your flight is delayed unless you think the life of all the passengers is not important.”
The flight was first delayed to 8:50pm, then to 11:30pm, and finally to 7:30am on Saturday, according to the notices. The final one indicated that the flight would use a different aircraft.
“We apologize for the delay to this flight due to engineering requirements. We will be using the first available aircraft to operate this service and there will be a change of crew,” the notice read.
Affected passengers were served refreshments and given S$15 to spend on food and beverages.
According to Roy, passengers boarded and had to exit the aircraft twice before successfully boarding the new plane on the third attempt.
During the first boarding, Roy said passengers were on the plane for an hour before alighting after brake issues were discovered. A similar thing happened the second time.
“Initial [estimated time of departure] was 20:50 pm, which was subsequently changed to 23:30pm when the engineers found that the brake pump was faulty and needed to be replaced,” he wrote about the first boarding. He also claimed he had missed his child’s award ceremony due to the delay.
Photos in his post show exasperated passengers queuing for one of the boardings, seated on the plane and sleeping at the gate. Hotel accommodation was not provided to the passengers.
According to Roy, they were told that all hotels were fully booked over the weekend, which saw several large events including the Standard Chartered Marathon and back-to-back U2 concerts.
However, Roy insisted that was a lie.
“They also refused to provide any hotel accommodation claiming all hotels were full (which was established to be a blatant lie),” he wrote. At the end of his post, he demanded flight ticket refunds and an apology from the airline.
Among those who attacked him in the comments was user Terence Foo, who said that it was indeed a busy weekend for Singapore. However, he said it was up to the hotel’s discretion to temporarily home the passengers.
“You would do well to change this mindset of yours, if not, like many of the commentators here, I would advise you default to flying with some other airline instead,” he wrote.
Facebook user Kailyn Song said he should be thankful for being alive.
“Well, safety always comes first. You choose the following option: Flight delay or Flight crash? Count your blessings that you are still alive,” she wrote.
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