PHUKET: Flights between Phuket and Australia by Strategic Airlines appear to be returning to regular schedules after five days of utter chaos that highlighted the airline's lack of adequate contingency planning. Similar problems also assailed the airline's services to Bali.

While Phuket welcomes Australian tourists in growing numbers and island tourism appreciates that Strategic provides direct links to Brisbane and Melbourne, it's plain that the young airline has much to learn about coping with chaos.

Phuketwan encountered many angry passengers who especially resented being taken to Phuket International Airport and being kept there for up to 10 hours awaiting flights that managers of Strategic must have known were never coming.

To insult the intelligence of passengers is perhaps the greatest blow any airline can deliver - and over the past five days, Strategic has insulted the intelligence of its passengers more than once.

Airlines with good reputations enhance them in a crisis by keeping their customers fully informed. The ones that thrive are the ones that spare no effort to resolve the difficulties.

Phuketwan talked to perhaps 20 of the stranded passengers over five days and the most typical and telling comment was: ''We've been treated like cattle on a ship, fed and watered, but kept in the dark.''

Once Strategic stopped shipping its ''cattle'' to Phuket International Airport to await flights that were never going to come, the situation improved.

The passengers, still mostly irate and in some cases losing money or being inconvenienced in major ways, were content to wait.

One passenger, Maria, established a rapport with Strategic by telephone and was able to keep other passengers informed. This was something a Strategic representative should have been on-hand to do.

Exactly why other passengers or their waiting families and friends in Australia were never able to raise Strategic by telephone as easily as Maria remains one of the mysteries of the Strategic chaos.

Maria was, however, subjected to abuse on at least one occasion that left her in tears. Reception staff at the resort where most of the passengers were held also heard plenty of Aussie swearing.

Most of the anger was down to Strategic: people wanted to know what was happening. Strategic neglected to tell them.

The five days of chaos on Phuket also reflected poorly on Australian aviation in general. Are these incidents of strandings reported to Civil Aviation authorities?

They should be.

Phuket tourism needs a service linking the big cities of Brisbane and Melbourne to Phuket. And Strategic's service, once aircraft are in the air, has been highly-praised.

It is to be hoped that Strategic now improves the speed with with future mechanical failures can be resolved, increases its capacity to deal with anxious passengers, and develops the contingency planning required of every mature international airline.