UPDATE
Passengers stranded on Phuket by a malfunction in a Strategic Airlines aircraft have been told that most of them will be on a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok to Brisbane on Monday night. Strategic has cancelled several Australia-Phuket flights and has yet to reveal when the service will resume.
Original Report
PHUKET: Angry passengers stranded on Phuket by Australia's relatively new carrier Strategic Airways were demanding answers from the Australian Government tonight as yet another flight was cancelled in farcical fashion.
Passengers due to leave Phuket for Australia this evening were first taken to the Phuket International Airport in the pretence that a flight might come, then transferred to a nearby Phuket resort.
Travellers accused Strategic of knowing there was never going to be a plane. The sole Strategic aircraft on the Australia-Phuket route has been stuck in Kuala Lumpur, being worked on by mechanics, for several days.
Some of the latest passengers to join the stranded list were surprised at the Naithonburi Resort to find fellow passengers to Melbourne they thought had left Phuket days ago.
One passenger, Jim Glencross, 70, from Coffee Camp, near Nimbin, who was due out on Friday for Brisbane, said tonight: ''It's a litany of lies from start to finish.
''There's going to be a civil war here. People will trash the place if they don't start getting some answers from Strategic or the Government.''
Strategic has been updating delays and cancellations involving flights to and from Phuket and Bali over the past few days on its online site but tonight the updates disappeared. It seemed online as though Strategic was functioning without ongoing delays and cancellations.
On Phuket, only one stranded passenger has been able to contact Strategic regularly - and she was today trying to organise for stranded passengers from Brisbane and Melbourne to travel home on alternative flights.
A representative for LTU, an agency working with Strategic, told Phuketwan tonight that only 17 of the stranded passengers could be accommodated on other flights out of Phuket today, leaving about 124 people from flights that were due to fly on Thursday and Friday.
Tonight they were joined at the resort by between 150 and 200 more stranded passengers, Mr Glencross said.
''When are we going to get help?'' Mr Glencross said. ''We can't even contact someone from Strategic to talk to them.''
Most of the people that Phuketwan spoke to at the resort today were resentful that they had been taken to Phuket airport twice or more in the belief that an aircraft was coming, when no aircraft was ever going to arrive.
Some were using bad language to receptionists and other passengers who were trying to help.
The reaction of passengers varied from those who were enjoying an extra few days on Phuket to others who were losing money. One was due to start a new job on Monday.
Others had missed weddings and funerals, and were worried about children and pets being cared for at home. At least two were due to have major surgery this coming week.
Passengers also said that families and friends waiting for the non-existent Strategic flights home from Phuket on Thursday and Friday had also been told nothing.
Phill Wood, from Bundaberg, said: ''The lack of communication is what gets to me. We are shuttled to the airport for long waits when there's no need.''
Mr Wood said he and two other passengers had had their passports held by Thai Immigration officials because their visas had now expired.
''I hope we are allowed to leave without having to pay the daily fine that accrues for overstaying visas,'' Mr Wood said.
In another nightmare case, Strategic had planned to send a three-month-old baby back to Australia alone on an alternative flight.
The child's family, along with scores of other passengers, spent more than 10 hours at the airport waiting for a non-existent Strategic flight.
Lerisha Holtzhausen, who lives near Point Cook in Victoria, not far from Melbourne, said she had travelled to Phuket for a holiday with five girlfriends. Three had ''escaped'' with alternative flights through Malaysia, but she and one friend had been stuck on Phuket since Thursday.
''My three year old son is at home, waiting for me,'' she said today. ''I am missing out on work, so that's not easy because I'm a single mother.''
At least one passenger who in desperation had paid $1220 for a one-way fare on a Thai Airways flight home via Bangkok said she had a whole row of seats to herself - challenging Strategic's claim that there were few available seats on alternative flights back to Australia.
Strategic began services to Phuket from Brisbane and Melbourne in February. But with the chaos on Phuket and reports of similar problems on its Perth-Bali route, the novice airline appears to have no contingency plans in the event of mechanical failures.
Jetstar experienced successive flight failures from Phuket last year and met the cost of $1 million to send a special flight to Phuket to bring home hundreds of trapped passengers from two overdue flights.
The chaos of stranded Australians abroad has probably not been experienced on this scale since the early 1970s, when charter flights often carried Australians to Europe at low cost - but some stranded passengers along the way.
Most of those charter airline companies went bust before low-cost airlines arrived to provide an alternative to full-service flights.
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Sorry but how useless are these people? How hard is it to get another flight from phuket to australia in the middle of low season? No need to whinge, blame the government, yell at receptionists or threaten civil war... Just find another flight home!
Posted by Powderfinger on June 20, 2011 07:04