PHUKET: An Australian family trapped on Phuket after their holiday earlier this month has called for airlines to set a limit on how long they leave passengers stranded before rebooking them with another carrier.

Melissa Crooks and husband Gavin, who were stuck on Phuket along with son Steven, 10, and daughter Clare, 7, for an extra four days this month, have made their call in Australia's biggest-selling newspaper.

The Crooks told the Melbourne Herald-Sun that Australian airlines should ''do what is right'' for the customer.

''If they can't fix the plane within 48 hours, then they have got to supply another flight on another airline,'' Ms Crooks said.

Hundreds of other Strategic Airlines passengers for Melbourne and Brisbane who were stranded on Phuket along with the Crooks would doubtless agree with them.

Phuketwan spoke with many of the stranded passengers on Phuket over several days, and they were united in their anger and frustration.

What upset people most was the lack of communication from Strategic, and trips to Phuket airport where passengers sometimes spent up to 10 hours waiting for flights that were obviously never going to come.

Managers at the airline must have known that the repair work being carried out in Kuala Lumpur was going to take much longer than they had led passengers to believe. Families and friends waiting for stranded passengers to arrive back in Melbourne and Brisbane were also not told the truth.

Strategic eventually left it to one of the stranded Phuket passengers to help the other stranded passengers to work with a local agent to find alternative flights home from Phuket.

Ash clouds and natural disasters are beyond the control of airlines. But with a mechanical failure of the kind that disturbed the Strategic flights between Phuket and Australia, being honest with stranded passengers is probably the best policy.

A Strategic spokesperson is quoted in the Herald-Sun as saying that the airline had ''gone to great lengths'' to contact customers, but encountered difficulties in reaching passengers unable to check email or their listed phone number.

That's true - at one hotel where the stranded passengers were accommodated, the internet cost 100 baht an hour and passengers were restricted to one three-minute call to be made from the reception counter.

A Strategic representative should have appeared in person on Phuket from the first day of the strandings to explain the situation to anxious passengers. At least three flights were involved.

Strategic has some ground to make up to reassure Phuket-bound passengers from Australia that it has their interests at the forefront of its contingency plans in the event of future disruption.

While Phuket tourism needs the link that Strategic provides between Phuket and Brisbane and Melbourne, it wants an airline that communicates and cares for its passengers in a professional fashion. The Crooks make a good point.